The Man Who Copied

Writer-director Jorge Furtado's quirky fable follows mild-mannered minimum-wage slave André (Ramos) along a highly eccentric route that leads him out of a vague fantasy world and into an unpredictable reality. But even as our hero's journey takes detours through stalking, counterfeiting, robbery and worse, the film maintains an incongruously sweet tone. Furtado's urban fairy tale occasionally flirts with American Splendor–like pessimism, but the movie is too fundamentally lighthearted to wallow in grinding poverty and despair; it flirts with danger, but invariably opts for satisfying fantasy.