A likeable and accomplished addition to the Latin American new wave.

The toastiest summer on record is but an intermittently flickering 40-watt bulb when held up to the positively incendiary sexual firestorm that is Brazilian import Lower City.

Everything feels obvious and by-the-numbers, as if director and co-writer Srgio Machado was constrained by archetypes and narrative tradition.

A gritty, Brazilian drama which called for Alice Braga to be naked and in heat nearly non-stop, whether in a bed with a boyfriend or one of her assortedy Johns.