João, the center of Daniel Ribeiro’s delightful adult coming-of-age and coming to terms film, keeps coming back to playing with a Rubik’s Cube as he deals with hearbreak, confusion, and perpetual horniness. At first, the colorful block is just something to pass the hours, but the more he comes back to it, the more it becomes a symbol for João as he tries to find answers about modern relationships, dating, and finding his next chapter. Ribeiro’s Perfect Endings leads with curiosity and has a lot of tantalizing fun along the way.
Ribeiro begins his film with the statement, “Based on True Feelings,” a refreshing warning before we meet Artur Volpi’s João, a filmmaker eager to make his feature directorial debut but encountering a roadblock when the studio wants to put his project on hold. He arrives home fresh from breaking up with Hugo, his partner of ten years, and their amicable separation is something that João likens to a a good season of television. They ended it when the show was still good, he tells his friends, Chico and Alice. João and Hugo won’t have a relationship that goes on for too many seasons.
João throws himself onto the apps, but he doesn’t jump into bed with anyone right away. He values getting to know someone and thinks that he needs to buck expectations in terms of hooking up, and Perfect Endings embraces the commonly unspoken notion that hooking up with someone new can be just as healing and strengthening as a long, late-night talk with a good friend. It may take João a few experiences to understand this, and his perspective shifts constantly as he witnesses other interactions between those engaging in carnal acts. João meets up with a couple, Alexandre and Rodrigo, and his voyeurism leads to an unforeseen career flirtation.
As João struggles to rewrite his screenplay, he views romance as a structured script that he can control, and Ribeiro takes us on an amusing, and surprisingly thoughtful ride. João decides to put himself into his writing, but if his relationship doesn’t go as planned, he edits his entire idea. If romance doesn’t work out with Leo, he can always replace him with Vitor. If Vitor flakes, he can bring in Orlando. It’s an entertaining device that has an undercurrent of emotional avoidance for João.
Ribeiro flirts with sliding into melodrama but the script and easy, relatable performance from Volpi prevent that. We see a lot of ourselves in João as he juggles professional and romantic trials, and Volpi is excellent. Are we too quick to judge others if their romance doesn’t line up with our own ideals? Like the title suggests, Perfect Endings concludes on a cheeky, sexy note, but Ribeiro’s film is a winning example of how we should all learn to throw the script out the window.
