Downfall (2021)

Downfall Following an anonymous complaint, the former Minister of Public Works Álvaro Vieira Branco is placed in house arrest in the context of the "Marinada" case, on suspicion of corruption practices, influence trafficking, economic participation in business, prevarication and abuse of power. The complaint allows the authorities, led by Inspector Gonçalo Schmidt, to finally investigate what they had long suspected: Álvaro Vieira Branco has no personal or family income that justifies his standard of living. Trapped in his luxurious mansion, Vieira Branco is forced to adapt his strategies to continue to meet the (especially) financial needs of those around him, while seeking to get rid of the case, discover the whistleblower and maintain influence in the public and party sphere. To get rid of the accusation and discover the whistleblower, Vieira Branco counts, first of all, with the collaboration of his long-time lawyer, David Rebelo Morais. At the same time, it is also through his former advisor, Bernardo Góis (who remains in the government team), that he will extend his tentacles to get involved in new party schemes. Zé Mário, former FP-25 bomber, is his trusted foreman, the man to whom he resorts when matters dispense with political diplomacy, the capacity for rhetoric or the mastery of the laws of law. It is Zé Mário who, together with Arnaldo (driver of the house), with whom he has a stable and faithful love relationship, allows Álvaro to continue to have money available, despite having frozen all his bank accounts. At the same time, Álvaro has to manage a delicate family situation. The mother, Maria de Lourdes Vieira, forced to sell the mansion so that her son can legally pay for the defense and the numerous domestic expenses, informs Álvaro that she is going to move home. Álvaro's wife, Raquel Vieira Branco, debates internally with the fact that she remains married to a man who knows not to be upright. Over the years, his moral compass has always been accommodating what she was discovering about Álvaro, but he can no longer justify what becomes evident with his arrest. The children Frederico and Matilde are Álvaro's point of contact with a real life, of a father of a family, of someone who does everything to protect his own. But the introverted Frederico, disillusioned with politics, prefers to spend his days on the computer or back from other gadgets. Matilde, on the other hand, a young woman demanding and positioned to the left of her father, has no itching to clash with him as the evidence of the prosecution becomes public. In addition to the oppression of the electronic bracelet, Álvaro is oppressed by the pressure of the family and the constant claims for money. When money is the great source of power, how do you maintain power with frozen accounts? In a way, all the characters live in home arrest, since they have interests or feelings that do not allow them to free themselves from Álvaro and, consequently, from that house.