Stranger Says:

Lázaro Ramos captured the film-world’s attention by way of 2002's Madame Satã, in which he played famed Brazilian convict-turned-drag performer João Francisco dos Santos. He's barely recognizable as the same actor in this reunion with Lower City director Sérgio Machado's The Violin Teacher, but he justifies that early hype. It's a more conventional film about a classical violinist who screws up his big audition and ends up teaching poverty-stricken teens, like the virtuosic Samuel (Kaique Jesus), in a São Paulo favela. The beats are familiar—man learns to love teaching, students learn to love man—but Ramos makes them count. (KATHY FENNESSY)