AFI Fest Highlights

Following are capsule reviews of today’s screenings in the American Film Institute Los Angeles International Film Festival at the Cineplex Odeon Century Plaza Cinemas: ‘The Story of Fausta’

Brazil, 1988, 100 minutes 7:15 p.m.

Bruno Baretto’s shrill, exhausting film traces the fortunes of a 40-ish housemaid in Rio, saddled with a useless, alcoholic husband, a no-good kid and a tin-roofed house that threatens to float away with each torrential rainstorm. If we are to find Fausta plucky as she pursues an old widower for what she hopes is his fortune, Baretto has overcalculated severely. Excruciating.