‘Here the Whole Time’ (2026) Netflix Movie Review - Why This Coming-of-Age Romance Falls Flat

Daniel Lieff's Here the Whole Time (or Quinze Dias) is at its best when it sees its protagonist, Felipe (Miguel Lallo), as a cautionary tale about the perils of playing the victim card all day, every day. Felipe considers himself not cute, not chubby, but fat. He is bullied at school and has no friends, which is why he begins to view himself through the gaze of his tormentors. His self-esteem plummets; he is scared of even going down to the swimming pool at his housing society. What's both sad and funny, though, is that when he watches rom-coms, he isn't able to imagine himself getting the guy in the movie (he is gay, in case you didn't know). Things get so bad that he has to see a therapist, and he retreats into a bubble of self-pity where he begins to think that he's the only person in the world who suffers terribly. Felipe chuckles in disbelief when Caio (Diego Lira) mentions that he, too, has his own issues to deal with. Why? Because Caio looks thin, handsome, and athletic. "What could trouble a young, good-looking man like him?" Felipe thinks. He applies the same logic when Melissa (Bel Moreira) talks about her own insecurities. The whole movie, then, becomes a sort of wake-up call for Felipe—a lesson that he's not the only person on Earth who is too self-conscious about his so-called shortcomings.

Before that realization, though, Felipe looks at his surroundings with limited understanding. In one scene, he lashes out at his mother, Rita (Débora Falabella), saying that she can never relate to him. Felipe has played the victim for so long that he has turned "blind." The concept is truly interesting; yet Here the Whole Time, written by Ray Tavares and Vitor Brandt and based on the 2017 novel of the same name by Vitor Martins, reduces its premise to fortune-cookie-style superficial lessons that neither bite nor sting. Caio and Melissa's confessions, for instance, are served to Felipe in the form of bold letters that call attention to their purpose in the film. Melissa's insecurity about her skin, meanwhile, is mentioned and resolved within minutes in the same scene. This insistence on keeping this coming-of-age teen romance in the zone of "cute" and "cuddly" neuters the sharp edges that could have made Felipe really pesky. The filmmakers, too, seem self-conscious about the fact that they cannot make their protagonist annoying just so that the movie can be embraced as a "warm hug" by many.

This feel-goodness renders the images impersonal and mild. There is no heart-fluttering intensity. Key scenes, like Felipe stopping Caio from boarding a bus, are devoid of romance and magic. Also, I was very annoyed by the recycling of the popular cliché in which a kiss is misinterpreted for the sake of introducing a conflict. It's here that Felipe comes across as just too exasperating, given that he doesn't allow Caio to explain himself—to tell him that the kiss meant absolutely nothing. However, even this "annoyance" is quickly brushed aside. Lieff doesn't want you to be angry at Felipe for too long because he can't risk spoiling the atmosphere of "good feelings," which, alas, seems like a futile venture considering those feelings are anyway spoiled by creative bankruptcy. Simply put, Here the Whole Time puts more imagination into the various ways it counts the number of days that pass by—the day numbers are seen on a door or a tattoo or a shirt—than into depicting the love story, the conflicts, or the coming-of-age story. After having sex with Caio, Felipe dances on the streets with other extras joining him, which reminds you of a similar scene from (500) Days of Summer, but with a difference: the sex between Felipe and Caio is not erotic, sensual, or titillating, so the resulting dance number just feels sterile.

Here the Whole Time, ultimately, is rescued by Falabella a little. This "cool mom" brings a sense of vivacity with small gestures and her beautiful smile. Look at how she communicates through her expressions with Felipe when Caio picks a musical for the movie night, and then how she jumps onto the sofa to sit in the middle of the two boys. Falabella has more life in her than almost every frame of this simple-minded film. It's no surprise, then, that you feel very sorry for her when she is stood up on a date, and you think Felipe perhaps goes too easy on the guy who commits this horrendous crime. I would be more than happy to watch a spin-off centered on Rita. She should definitely demand her own solo film. That comedy-drama might just be worth watching; it might even be better than Here the Whole Time.