General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Me You Them

Me You Them (Portuguese: Eu, tu, eles) is a 2000 Brazilian comedy-drama directed by Andrucha Waddington, in which a woman in the arid backlands of northeastern Brazil lives with three husbands under one roof. Regina Casé stars as Darlene, with Lima Duarte, Stênio Garcia, and Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos as the three husbands Osias, Zezinho, and Ciro. The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2000 Cannes Film Festival, where it received a special mention, and went on to win roughly 20 awards worldwide, including Best Film at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.¹^•²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Original title / year	Eu, tu, eles (Me You Them), Brazil, 2000, 107 minutes, 35 mm, Portuguese¹^•⁴
Director and writer	Directed by Andrucha Waddington; screenplay by Elena Soarez¹
Cast	Regina Casé (Darlene), Lima Duarte (Osias), Stênio Garcia (Zezinho), Luiz Carlos Vasconcelos (Ciro)¹
Key crew	Cinematography Breno Silveira; music Gilberto Gil; editing Vicente Kubrusly⁵
Basis	Inspired by a TV documentary about a woman who lives with three men; described as based on a true story⁴^•⁶
Major honors	Un Certain Regard Special Distinction, Cannes 2000; Best Film, Karlovy Vary 2000; Grand Prix Cinema Brasil 2001¹^•²^•⁵
Release and box office	Brazil August 18, 2000; United States March 2, 2001 (Sony Pictures Classics); worldwide gross $560,943⁷^•⁸

Spoilers

Plot

Darlene, a single mother, leaves her small town to seek the man who can fulfill her desires, and returns three years later still unmarried. She accepts a marriage proposal from her neighbor Osias, an older, settled man who raises goats. The marriage is practical: Darlene cooks, washes, and works the land while Osias supervises from a hammock, listening to his portable radio.⁹^•⁴

After a failed attempt to leave him, Darlene takes in Osias's cousin Zezinho, who makes no effort to hide his feelings for her, and his love is answered; a son is born whose eyes resemble Zezinho's. Then Ciro, a young drifter who works on Osias's land, joins the household after a single meal with the family, and Darlene bears his child as well. Osias decides it is time to put his house in order, and the four adults settle into an unconventional but stable family arrangement.⁴^•⁶

Production and background

Waddington, then in his early thirties, had worked as an assistant to Héctor Babenco and Walter Salles before directing commercials and music videos; Me You Them was his second feature, after Gêmeas (1999).¹⁰^•¹¹ The true story that inspired Elena Soarez's screenplay took place in the state of Ceará, while the film itself was shot on location in the Bahian sertão, near the small settlement of Junco do Salitre close to Juazeiro.¹²^•⁷

The film was made for R$ 1.9 million, about 70 percent of it raised through Brazil's incentive-based financing system, and its Brazilian release on August 18, 2000 opened on 120 screens with a distribution budget the distributor compared to that of an American studio production.⁷ Gilberto Gil, the bossa nova and tropicalismo musician, led the music direction and composed the score, which drew on nine songs by Luiz Gonzaga; the soundtrack was released months before the film as part of its promotion.⁷^•⁴

Reception and awards

The first public screening, in Un Certain Regard at Cannes in May 2000, ended with eight minutes of applause and a special mention from the jury.¹² The film then traveled through some 17 festivals, including Karlovy Vary, where it won Best Film, and Havana, Cartagena, and Sundance.²^•¹³ In Brazil it took Best Film, Best Editing, Best Photography, and Best Actress for Casé at the 2001 Grande Prêmio Cinema Brasil, and Breno Silveira won the ABC cinematography award.¹⁴ Screen Daily later put its total at 20 awards, including the Un Certain Regard honor at Cannes.³

In the United States, Sony Pictures Classics opened the film in New York the week of March 2, 2001 and in Los Angeles on March 16; it was rated PG-13.¹⁵ The US gross was $323,923 and the worldwide total $560,943.⁸ Critics responded warmly: Roger Ebert's review noted the film's dusty visual beauty and its comic handling of the household, and The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw called it a remarkable film that makes Darlene's domestic arrangement convincing within a tough, macho society.⁶^•¹⁰ Rotten Tomatoes records a 75 percent Tomatometer score from 57 reviews, with a critics consensus praising Casé's "charismatically earthy performance".¹⁶

Themes and legacy

Reviewers and scholars have read the film as a study of an alternative family structure rather than a farce. IFFR's program notes observe that Waddington shows details rather than passing judgment on his heroine, and a 2002 article in the International Forum of Psychoanalysis described Darlene as inaugurating "an original model of family structures which do not aim toward completeness".⁴^•¹⁷ The film has also been cited in Brazilian legal scholarship on polyamorous family arrangements.¹⁸

The film's success established Waddington internationally; his next feature, The House of Sand (2005), reunited much of the same creative team, including producers Leonardo Monteiro de Barros and Pedro Buarque de Hollanda and writer Elena Soarez.¹⁹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of 2000 to 2002 › Comedies of 2000

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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