Good Morning, Verônica (Bom Dia, Verônica) is a Brazilian thriller about a woman police clerk who takes on a case without authorization. Although the star of the series is a woman, it uses many tropes regarding the victimization of women – rapes, serial murders, and domestic abuse all rolled into one series.
Verônica (Tainá Müller) is a clerk in the police department. I don’t really understand her position, because with a title like that in the US, she would be administrative help. However, Verônica has a badge and a gun. When she gets interested in some rape cases where one of the victims shoots herself in the police station, she’s allowed to investigate.
The captain Wilson Carvala (Antonio Grassi) is her godfather. His friendship with her father is used to explain how she gets away with investigating things she shouldn’t actually be investigating.
Verônica’s back story is that her father was a police officer. He supposedly killed himself over a case after shooting his wife. That trauma has held Verônica back from taking the exam that would make her a detective. She has a husband and two kids and still lives in the house where she grew up and found her dead parents.
As the rape cases are resolving, an abused wife comes to Verônica’s attention. That situation drives the interlaced strands of mystery and suspense for the remainder of the episodes.
The abused wife, Janete (Camila Morgado), sees Verônica on television and calls the number Verônica announces. When Verônica goes to talk to her, she won’t admit anything.
Verônica goes a little off the rails. She’s determined to save Janete. She starts chasing after the Janete case to the detriment of her job, her family, and her life.
Claudio (Eduardo Moscovis) is the abusive husband. He’s also a military police officer and therefore off limits.
As Verônica digs deeper and deeper into what is going on with Jenete and Claudio she uncovers serial murders and a cabal of former children from a foster home who have all gone on to become corrupt police officers, police administrators, and city officials. They don’t want Claudio’s case investigated.
Because she cannot trust the police officers around her, Verônica turns in her badge and goes vigilante. She’s going to solve this if it costs her everything – her family, her job, possibly even her life.
I watched this series to the end, but there were a lot of things that bothered me. The abuse of Janete was often psychological but was also physical and insanely evil. The camera never turned away from any of it. The murders were shown in graphic detail and the camera never turned away from them either. There was a gratuitous nude scene in the shower with Tania Muller that just felt embarrassing for her. I think I’m burned out on stories about evil men and the awful things they do to women.
I kept going because I liked Tainá Müller as Verônica – she’s smart, strong, and independent. She’s all the things you look for in a leading woman. But she goes off on a crazy journey of her own at the end that I didn’t think made sense.
The series is full of excitement and suspense and action, but if what I’ve said about it sounds triggering for you, then beware.
Good Morning, Verônica (Bom Dia, Verônica) is in Brazilian Portuguese. It’s streaming on Netflix. One of the directors is a woman (Izabel Jaguaribe) and two of the writers are women.
Have a look at the trailer.
What do you think? Are you going to give this one a try?
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on the question of Veronica having a badge and weapon, it is the police structure in Brazil. first of all it is important to understand that here we have a separation in the police. very simply, we have the military police and the civil police. military police take care of policing on the streets, ostensive policing. The civil police takes care of the investigation and police reports. Veronica is a civil police clerk and Brandão is a military police officer
Thank you so much for the information. Thanks for visiting.
The scenes that bothered you were written and filmed by a Brazilian perspective and unfortunately we’re used to such reality. If we don’t live this directly, we kinda know someone who’s being through it. We normalised this sort of violence long time ago, specially when it comes from state authorities, hierarchy and our colonial past (based on rape, exploitation and slavery).
However, I agree with you. The scenes are heavy, raw, anguishing, even with the parental advisory.
I must agree with the bath scene too. I noticed that many series, from any country, are including such scenes just because someone said so. It changes nothing in the plot, as well as sex scenes, totally unnecessary sometimes.
Nice review!
Unfortunately such scenes are normal everywhere. They are in so many films and series. Brazil is not the problem, although I appreciate your info about the country.
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