The title of Bruno Barreto's Bossa Nova evokes certain expectations -- namely, that the film will serve as an ode to the director's home country, full of charms intrinsically linked to that Brazilian-born style of melodic jazz. However, the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim and Stan Getz is peculiarly underused, shedding no thematic light on the consummate Brazil that draws romantics to its shores. In their adaptation of the Sergio Sant' Anna novel, Alexandro Machado and Fernanda Young fail to make Brazil a character, leaving it at the level of a beautiful yet inessential backdrop. These atmospheric shortcomings are unfortunate, but not fatal; the holes in the script are more problematic. Bossa Nova charts its several budding romances in fits and starts, indifferently developing the characters and then asking the audience to deeply sympathize with them. Amy Irving and Antonio Fagundes do have some nice moments that fulfill the viewer's preconceived notions, but that relationship meanders more than the others, full of unexplained shifts in attitude. Certain characters also receive peculiar treatment, such as the narcissistic soccer player whom the film views as a sympathetic protagonist, and the Chinese-born tai chi instructor whose downfall stems from behaving too Chinese. It's surprising to see such xenophobia embedded in the film. Bossa Nova aims for realism in the sense that it's truly bilingual, the dialogue spoken in either English or Portuguese depending on the fluency of each particular character. However, this may be frustrating for DVD watchers, as the flip-flopping requires leaving the subtitles running at all times.