Created by Heather Roth and Giuliano Cedroni, Coisa Mais Linda (Most Beautiful Thing, in English) has its focus on four women with distinct stories. Starring Malu (Maria Casadevall), the series is told through excellent photography of warm and tropical colors, that end up filling the spectator’s eyes with delight. Maria Luiza is from São Paulo and, with her husband, has plans to open a restaurant in Rio De Janeiro. However, he runs away with another woman and takes all their money. Without knowing what to do and with the one certainty that music needed to have its own place, Malu tries to start her own business being a single woman.
Everything happens in 1959, in a romanticized Rio de Janeiro and to the sound of good music. Besides Malu, the story is told by three other women with their own narrative arc: Lígia (Fernanda Vasconcellos), Adélia (Pathy Dejesus) e Thereza (Mel Lisboa).
Image Sourcde: IMDb
Lígia is Malu’s oldest friend, she’s also a frustrated singer. That’s because her husband doesn’t let her show her talent to the world. She’s the perfect picture of what society expected from a woman, domestic and obedient.
Adélia’s story is the most distinct out of the four: being a person of color, she encounters different (and more) obstacles than the others. Living on the favela and forbidden of using the passenger elevator, even when the service one is broken, many times she has been mistaken as the maid, even by Lígia in the beginning.
Thereza is, without a doubt, the most “deconstructed”. Feminist and journalist, her work consists of writing for a women’s magazine that has, in reality, a team full of men that think they know what women want to read. Although she’s married, she has an open relationship, something really uncommon at the time and very explored by the show.
Most Beautiful Thing discusses sexism, racism and domestic violence during seven long episodes and its peak is the inauguration of Malu’s music club. However, the event takes a while to happen and, after that, there are few episodes left for the consequences to unfold and everything seems very rushed.
Sisterhood is definitely the key-word of the show. Even in the beginning, when they’re only acquaintances, they still have each other’s back, something that happens every episode. It’s beautiful to see that, when everything conspires against them, they become a safe and comforting harbor for each other.
Netflix tried to internationalize the series, by making it reach other countries, like they did with 3%, another one of their shows. This action becomes clear with the opening song choice: it’s Garota de Ipanema, a Bossa Nova classic, but this version is in english.
In the words of Ícaro Silva, the Captain (Adélia’s romantic pair): Coisa Mais Linda is the series of feminine narratives in a sexist Brazil that is living a big moment of cultural effervescence.