Dora, sixty three years old, a former school teacher who earns a living by writing and sending letters for people in the train station, Central Station in Rio de Janeiro. She is single; she has no family, no relatives and just gets   friends. Every day, she writes letters for dozens of people who want to send messages to their lovers, parents, sons and daughters. Those people express their love through letters.   Yet, none of them can touch Dora. In her eyes, money is the most important element in life. Her tearing and keeping letters in the drawer shows her apathy. She can’t see the importance of love.  She is jealous of those  who can experience love and who is living with  the spiritual support of the closest. She is suffering from loneliness for the whole life! However, a journey with a little boy helps her to find back the long-loss  love. In this essay, I will examine the ways love melts a woman’s frozen heart and the ways she desires to be loved, I will also argue that it is a good production.

This movie tells us that love can melt one’s frozen heart. Ana, a customer of Dora, died from an accident. Her nine-year-old son, Josue, is left behind. Josue wants to find back his father whom he has never seen before. Dora first takes him to a center where he would  be adopted later. Dora gains money but not love.

Money can make her feel safe. Her conscience haunts her after she knows that the centre, actually, is an illegal organ selling firm. She then decides to bring the kid back to his father. In fact, her act is not from her  heart, but a kind of remedy  as she finds herself guilty of betraying Josue. It shows that she doesn’t like the kid at all. What she is doing now is for the sake of comforting herself; she only regards him as a burden which she always wants to get rid of. In the beginning of the trip, for several times, she wants to leave the boy alone and return home herself. It is clear that she still doesn’t feel sympathetic towards the boy, her heart is still frozen.

However, as time elapses, something changes. They stay together days and night. They both suffer from hunger; they sleep in the same bed together. They also share the feeling with each other. All these tiny issues have linked these two persons together in silence. Dora has already regarded Josue as her  son in heart though she scolds him very often. The nine-year old boy helps her to find backs the love that she has lost for many years. Her sudden loss of Josue makes her very frightened. She searches him in the throngs of people madly. It proves that she does love the boy. Her love does come back! She later  faints. When she wakes up, she finds that she is lying on the boy’s leg. This makes her feel safe. Yet, she is depressed, as she knows that they will soon be apart. With no doubt, she now loves the boy from the bottom of her heart and she is afraid of losing him. After returning Josue to his family, she leaves silently and desperately. She thinks that Josue will have a better life by staying with his brothers, thus, she leaves secretly. Love makes Dora think from Josue’s side and she is no longer selfish. Love is the best tonic to the frozen heart.

This movie also shows how a woman searches for love. There is no doubt that every woman wants to be loved, to get married, to have a companion who can enjoy life with, on top of it , to have children who can take care of her when she is old. It seems that it is easy to fulfil, however, it is only a dream for Dora, a dream that will never come true. At the age of sixty-three, after retirement, she still needs to work. Why? Not like the other housewives,  She needs to earn a living for herself.

During the trip to search for Josue’s father, she thinks of her father too. Her mother dies when she was young; her father left her when she was fourteen. At that time, she has already lost all her love. She is lonely. That’s why she desires for love. She’s afraid of being left behind. She’s afraid that Josue will forget her. During the journey, she meets a truck driver who is a very kind man. She instantly loves him and expresses her love to him after a few days. She may not really loves the truck driver, they only know one another for a few days. This shows that she passionately desires to be loved and to be cared. Moreover, she wants to get rid of the lonely life. The truck driver leaves and she cries. It can be seen how disappointed and upset she is. She loses the chance and has to be lonely for the  rest of her life. In fact, I think that she is quite lucky at all. Though she can’t be with Josue, she, at least, can experience love. Furthermore, she knows how to love people. This can be a very good memory for her. Therefore, her search of love is still successful.

This movie is a good production. The success of this movie ascribes to its great screenplay. It successfully portrays how a woman’s heart is warmed by love and a woman’s desire to be loved and cared. It portrays the theme naturally by using a boy-returning journey. In fact, it also shows that human relationship is so marvelous that love is not only bounded in kinship, love can be found everywhere.

The performance of the ensemble cast is fairly good. The performance of the sixty-three year old Brazil actress, Fernanda Montenegro is great; she can play the role naturally. She makes me feel that loneliness is unbearable and love is great. When she is still a cool letter writer, she behaves selfishly. When she is filled with love, she then becomes a kind and caring lady. Her way to express emotion is not exaggerating but naturally. She can get hold of the role very well. The ten-year old little actor, Vinicius de Oliveira also impresses me. Although his performance is not as good as Fernanda, he plays his role as a stubborn and poor boy with a heart. When he is happy, he smiles naively. When he is sad, he cries sadly and naturally.

Although the original score is quite monotonous, it is heart breaking. It suits the atmosphere of the film. It can help to arouse  the sad mood and make the audience touch the feeling of the characters. Thus, they can easily get into the story.

All in all, love should be widely spread. We should know that a world without love is divided. It will only be filled with selfishness, spite, and alienation. It will only be a terrible one that no one wants to live in. Love is the tonic for everything.

(1247 words)