Central Station

(Columbia TriStar)

Walter Salles's earnest tearjerker pushes all the familiar buttons but with slickly neo-realistic style, and he gets a masterful performance from veteran Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro as a retired teacher who takes charge of a motherless 10-year-old boy as the two of them head into the Brazilian interior to search for the boy's father, scrambling for money, hitching rides, and bickering and embracing while tracking down one dead-end lead after another.