Antonio Sequeira’s Autumn is as close and authentic of a family drama about children leaving the nest for university as you will see. Tied together with some beautiful performances in gorgeous rural Portugal.

In a small Portuguese town, a family of four’s life is about to change forever when the eldest, Tomás (Salvador Gil), departs for university in England—leaving his grieving mother, Susana, his seemingly carefree behind-the-times dad, Otávio, and his perennially forgotten younger sister, Belinha. Each season during University break, he returns to find not only himself changed but his family, too.

Family dramas come and go, yet few ever feel truly authentic to that feeling of what it is actually like. With Autumn, Antonio Sequeira’s feature debut, you feel the realness in every scene and moment almost on a personal level. If you have left home to study in another country like Tomás, you come back thinking you are older and wiser with each break, yet you will notice those little changes in the household. Perhaps your mum is a bit more clingy than usual, your dad is treating you more like an adult, and your younger sibling is desperate to have someone on their side again after months of “suffering”.

These little moments throughout his screenplay gently tap you, making you alert to these changes as we transition from one season to the next, as if we are in a stage play, only with a gorgeous setting in a valley in the background. It isn’t flashy, and it never tries to reinvent the family drama wheel. But what Autumn does exquisitely well is get under your skin just enough to make it feel like you are watching people you know. It’s a film that emotionally sneaks up on you, so when you reach that final season. Everyone is finding their place in this evolving part of their life; you find yourself far more deeply moved than expected.

The chemistry between our four leads is one of the strengths of Autumn; they feel as if they have known each other all their lives, and in two of those cases, that is true, for Miguel and Beatriz Frazão are actually father and daughter. You immediately pick up a strong connection between the two. Otávio is watching his daughter grow, and as Autumn was filmed over a year, Miguel would have been seeing these little changes as well, with Antonio Sequeira letting those moments linger wonderfully, especially in their final scene together.

Tomás starts the film as a nervous, slightly geeky guy who doesn’t want to be a big drinker in England, to the point where he has researched how to pretend to be one. Yet, as nervous as he is, he wants to try something new. Salvador Gil nails the role of an 18-year-old, finding himself in his first year away from home, to the point that he feels like a different character by the time he returns in the Autumn. He has figured himself out and is confident and independent in his adulthood. His different relationships with his three other family members are one that many who have moved away to study and returned periodically throughout the year will immediately relate to.

Otávio has quite an interesting arc; yes, his opinions on gender roles and masculinity are behind the times, and he still, for some reason, loves a racist joke. But there is far more to the character than that; he is far more tender than you expect, especially when he begins to have his own existential crisis on how he copes with his children leaving. Where Susana grieved over Tomás leaving the nest, for Otávio, it was Belinha. Miguel Frazão’s performance goes under the radar with its subtlety. It isn’t after Belinha begins the process of wanting to study abroad that the realisation that he is “losing” both his children hits him.

On the other end of the scale is Susana, played brilliantly by Elsa Valentim. She starts Autumn as a woman who wears her heart on her sleeve and is as close to a typical overbearing mother to her only son as you can get. However, as the seasons progress, she realises she doesn’t need to live just for her kids, especially if they are out in the world (or at least Tomás is). So her character evolution is as like the film, as honest as they come. She is not so secretly stressing about age, how her child has taken all the strength out of her, all of her energy, and she has nothing left to give. With each attempt to rekindle the love they shared, she is pushed back. She hasn’t realised or accepted that their relationship has evolved just yet, but as she does, she flourishes.

Belinha is the second child and daughter who is flat-out ignored by her mother. In the first half or so of Autumn, poor Belinha takes the brunt of Susana’s grief. So on the occasions that Tomás returns, she is shifted back down to the second place and even forced to put out the cutlery just when her brother tried to do it but was told that Susana herself could do it, who, of course, just passes the task to her youngest without a second thought.

Her relationship with Tomás is a deeply interesting one. She loves her brother; he is her guide through life, and with him gone for those first few months, she flounders. She just wants to stand out and be her own person. However, her support from her brother is not there to help her, so she struggles alone. As the year progresses, she is actually the one who remains strong and grows as a person. No longer needing her brother, she has become certain of her life decisions and has become a strong branch in her family tree. To the point that Tomás is proud and almost a bit jealous of her ability to do what she wants and not what is expected of her. Beatriz Frazão almost comes along and sneaks the film from under everyone’s noses with her performance.

Autumn has all of these little kinks, yet nothing is ever too melodramatic to be distracting. You are involved in this family story, and you want the absolute best for them. Its a film about embracing that next chapter in your life. Whether you are the parent seeing off your children to university, the child going to uni or the one still at home, life is a bunch of chapters and it is up to the person for how they write their next one. Antonio Sequeira has made a little piece of brilliance here – a lovely gem of a film.

★★★★ 1/2

Autumn will be available on Digital Download in the UK from June 2nd and in the US from June 3rd.

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