General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands

Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos) is a 1976 Brazilian comedy-fantasy directed by Bruno Barreto, adapted from Jorge Amado's 1966 novel of the same name, about a widow in 1940s Salvador, Bahia, who remarries a respectable pharmacist and then finds her wild first husband returning as a ghost only she can see¹^•². It became the most successful film in Brazilian history on its domestic release and remained Brazil's highest-grossing film for about 35 years².

Key fact	Detail
Original title	Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos
Release	22 November 1976, São Paulo; shown in Rio de Janeiro from 16 December 1976¹
Director	Bruno Barreto, about 20 years old at the time of release²
Source	Jorge Amado's 1966 novel Dona Flor e seus dois maridos¹
Cast	Sônia Braga (Dona Flor), José Wilker (Vadinho), Mauro Mendonça (Teodoro)³
Box office	More than ten million spectators; Brazil's top-grossing film for over three decades⁴^•²
Format	35 mm Eastmancolor, 118 minutes, produced in Rio de Janeiro¹
Recognition	Golden Globe nomination for best foreign film and a BAFTA nomination for Sônia Braga as most promising newcomer³

Spoilers

Story

The setting is Salvador in the 1940s. During the carnival of 1943, Vadinho, Dona Flor's first husband, drops dead of a heart attack while dancing in the street¹. At his wake he is remembered as a rascal, gambler, and gigolo, and by some as a great man⁵. He was a spendthrift who gambled away the money Flor earned teaching cooking, kept mistresses, and once beat her when she refused to lend him money, yet he was also a devoted lover, and Flor mourns him deeply¹.

After a period of mourning, Flor marries Dr. Teodoro Madureira, a respectable pharmacist and lover of classical music whom the neighbors consider a perfect man. With him even sex is methodical, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, with an occasional "encore" on special occasions⁴^•⁵. The stable life bores her, and she keeps sighing for her late husband³. At the couple's first anniversary party, Vadinho's ghost appears naked on her bed and resumes his advances⁵. Flor consults a pai-de-santo (an Afro-Brazilian religious healer) to drive the spirit away, then immediately calls him back, because in the end she wants him to stay¹. The film ends with Flor keeping both husbands, the sensual one and the respectable one⁶.

Production

The screenplay was adapted from Amado's novel by Leopoldo Serran and Eduardo Coutinho, with Bruno Barreto also contributing but uncredited; the film was produced by Luiz Carlos Barreto and others, shot in Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, with cinematography by Murilo Salles, editing by Raimundo Higino, and music by Chico Buarque and Francis Hime⁴^•⁷. The song "O que será," one of the biggest hits of Chico Buarque's career, was written and composed especially for the film².

Barreto was between 20 and 21 years old when the film premiered in November 1976, and it was his third feature²^•⁷. The film was made during Brazil's military dictatorship, which had ruled since 1964⁸. Brazilian federal censorship classified it as forbidden to minors under 18¹.

Reception and box office

The film set records at home. After three months in theaters it had drawn ten million spectators, and the Cinemateca Brasileira's records place it first among Brazilian films by revenue for the period July 1970 to June 1977, with receipts of Cr$ 65,567,483.10 and 7,591,693 spectators⁹^•¹. It remained Brazil's highest-grossing film for about 35 years and was the highest-grossing Brazilian film worldwide for more than 30 years².

Abroad it traveled widely. It opened in Paris on 3 August 1977 in ten cinemas with a guaranteed run of at least six weeks, played New York's Paris Theatre in 1978, and drew more than 300,000 viewers in Montevideo in early 1978, partly from Argentine tourists where the film was then banned at home¹^•¹⁰. It received Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations³. The American remake Kiss Me Goodbye, directed by Robert Mulligan with Sally Field, James Caan, and Jeff Bridges, was described by one reference work as lackluster by comparison⁷^•¹¹.

The film's success also produced spin-offs in Brazil: a soundtrack album, reprints of Amado's novel, a margarine brand called Margarina Flor launched right after the release, and a 1978 pornochanchada parody, Seu Florindo e Suas Duas Mulheres¹²^•¹³.

Legacy

Sônia Braga's performance made her an international star; the film is credited with announcing her to the world and consolidating her image as an icon of the Brazilian mulata in a vision of national identity built on cultural and racial mixture (mestiçagem)²^•⁶. The historian writing in Perspectives on History notes that until recently the film was the highest-grossing Brazilian film of all time, primarily because of its success overseas, and that it shaped how tens of millions of Brazilians and non-Brazilians imagine Brazil⁶.

The story has been adapted repeatedly. Rede Globo broadcast a miniseries version in 1998, starring Giulia Gam, Edson Celulari, and Marco Nanini, set in the Bahia of the 1990s¹⁴. The novel has also been adapted as a Broadway musical and a Mexican telenovela¹¹. In 1997, for the film's 20th anniversary, it returned to Rio de Janeiro screens with the scenes cut by censorship in the original version restored¹. Film Movement issued a new 4K restoration, which screened at the Quad Cinema in New York in 2021 and at Film at Lincoln Center in 2024¹¹^•².

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026