Like many of Manoel de Oliveira’s features, this lush 2005 drama was adapted from a Portuguese novel by Agustina Bessa-Luis. A childless, depressive rich woman (Leonor Silveira) has her head turned by a professor (Michel Piccoli, speaking all his lines in English) and becomes obsessed with the idea of the Virgin Mary making a personal appearance in front of her. Meanwhile her servant (Ricardo Trepa) plots with a counterfeiter to fake an apparition. None of the melodramatic expectations set up in the story is met, but the very dry comedy makes this one of Oliveira’s more accessible works. In Portuguese with subtitles. 137 min. (JR)