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Two films compete for life in “Isabel,” and their lack of synthesis creates a fuzzy mental affect familiar to anyone who ever underestimated their alcohol tolerance. In striving to be both a character study of a dissatisfied sommelier and a picaresque tale of ambition in São Paulo’s gentrified districts, director Gabe Klinger fails to land the emotional reality of his eponymous lead character, Isabel (the film‘s co-writer and Brazilian polymath, Marina Person).
When you title a film after a character (say “Laura”, “Gilda”, “Gloria”) you gotta make her your center of gravity. Yet, as this film unfolds, it becomes increasingly unmoored from Isabel which, like a domino effect of two, makes the social aspects feel loudly anonymous, like so much wine-bar white noise.
This failure to launch betrays a promising first act, which sets up a potentially compelling tale of — to counter “Marty Supreme” — dreaming small. We meet Isabel in a state of material comfort and creative stagnation. She has a home, a partner, a community, and a good job as a sommelier in a Michelin-starred restaurant. What she lacks is the freedom to express her passion for natural wines in her place of work. Although she has painstakingly forged connections with local producers, their punk-rock wines grow dusty in the cellar while her conservative boss prescribes a steady diet of pop hits for the menu.
This music analogy comes into play during a conversation with an American punter. Isabel is wary as she responds to a request to visit the table of businessman-of-the-world Pat (John Ortiz). Her weary familiarity conveys that “asking to speak to the sommelier” is a regular flex from patrons who fancy themselves a cut above the usual diner. The restaurant setting is sleek, small and vibeless; a place where taste means refined manners. In this personality-free context, Pat is able to sell himself as a character, trading off of his former life as a line cook and asking Isabel the question she wants to be asked: which wine she really recommends. She asks what music he likes and when he answers, she knows what to pour.
Director of photography Flora Dias creates intimate frames, building up scenes from close-ups of faces and hands, and finding the private sensuality of characters while they perform respectability in public places. In the initial meeting between Isabel and Pat, this intimacy feels borderline intrusive in a manner that suits the scene. Although she is the professional, the customer is always right, so he holds her captive, especially once he sees what gets her going.
One thing leads to another and soon Isabel is indulging Pat’s sense of cultural superiority by showing him her spots. What he has over her is that he just might bankroll her escape plan of opening a wine bar. Their relationship is ambiguous and all too fucking relatable to anyone whose dreams are contingent on a greenlight from a moneyman. (The filmmaking comparison is right there.) This stretch of “Isabel” is its high watermark, as Klinger lets their dynamic simply unfold without any kind of signposting. The contrast between the breezy surface and the real meaning is subtly played. In preparation for her assignations with Pat at locations in the city agreeable to him, Isabel pays careful attention to her personal style and dress. When they drink wine together, to her it’s an audition and to him… we don’t know. It could be foreplay, it could be fun, it could be the beginning of a partnership. The stakes are not equal; her dream of a future could be a meaningless flirtation to him.
Our understanding of what all of this means to Isabel is expressed through her relationship with the real man of her life, Nico (Caio Horowicz) her BFF and a waiter at the chichi restaurant where she works. Less a fully realized character and more of a handy confessional device, Nico is a bizarre creation who signifies the limits of Klinger’s talents as a director.
Several decades younger than Isabel, he is loyal to her for reasons that the film does not explicate. Isabel’s partner is shunted off on an international trip leaving Isabel to her own devices. She befriends a hot young hot American woman (model Michel Ellyse) and hangs out with Nico a lot. Klinger is making a different film with his gaze than the one he is plotting out. Never mind opening a wine bar, the camera is in thrall to the youthful beauty of Horowicz and Ellyse and the slightly older beauty of Person. We go off track here and there is no way back. There is still a story to get through. Isabel rented a space, for gawd’s sake, but at this point, the film stops caring whether it succeeds or fails. Who cares about that when we can watch her hanging out at home in her charming green kimono?
“Won’t someone think of the natural wine lovers of São Paulo” is a slight provocation on which to mount a feature film, yet cinema is a broad enough church to accommodate all stories. Alexander Payne’s “Sideways” proved that wine can be a way into a person. The misstep in this framing of a Person is that Klinger does not take her seriously enough. He is neither coolly and critically detached from Isabel’s low-stakes ambitions, nor warmly wedded to the agency of her desires. The camera is glued to her and her friends without empathy or curiosity. “Isabel” sets up a particular person’s world only to tell the audience “she’ll be fine, either way.”
Klinger neither judges nor relates to Isabel. Instead, he objectifies her without ever folding his particular perspective into his story. This creates a jarring effect as the significance of her busy endeavours is sublimated by the perverted impulse to judge her physical form. Plenty of male filmmakers have successfully aligned themselves with the daily tribulations of women — hello to the Dardenne brothers and Éric Rohmer, amongst others. What they have that this film lacks is an interest in female interiority. Isabel gives her name to this film, but Isabel dissolves on the tongue.
Grade: C
“Isabel” premiered at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.
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