Socrates, a good-hearted boy being pushed into manhood the hard way, lurches from crisis to crisis. Then this fairly short film ends.

There was room to tell us more, even while we can probably guess the back-story involving his father. The cinematography is brilliant, and the English sub-titles were precise and colloquial, so that was a big help. Not too unusually for Brazilian films, "Socrates" gives us the feeling of being right there, almost as if it were a documentary. I understand this was a project involving young filmmakers and they should be commended -- it's strong, and would only have been made stronger by filling in bits and pieces of the story.