“I am an old lady and a child,” Clara, the defiant Brazilian heroine of Kleber Mendonça Filho’s wonderful second feature, declares sadly at some point. She may see herself that way, but, age notwithstanding, Sônia Braga allows Clara no intimations of going gently into any good nights. This is a robust, proud, witty performance that puts the actor in prime position for a prize here at Cannes.

Before directing the excellent Neighbouring Sounds, Mendonça was a film critic, and it is tempting to wonder if he is consciously pilfering a popular plot from family cinema (seen in Up and Batteries Not Included, for instance). Clara is the last person in an apartment building holding out against rapacious developers of the Trumpian stripe. A retired classical music critic – with a shameless passion for Queen – she now spends her time drinking wine, smoking the occasional joint and chatting amiably to a friendly lifeguard. Everybody thinks she should take the money, but Dona Clara will not be budging.

A prologue goes some way towards explaining why. In 1980, she and her husband hosted a party in the same flat for the 70th birthday of an indomitable aunt. The event came shortly after she had had a mastectomy and undergone punishing chemotherapy. Now alone, Clara sees the dwelling as an outer shell. Every ornament, furnishing and drape speaks of a woman in charge of her destiny.

Moving at a stately pace towards a slightly contrived – but cunningly concealed – ending, the film itself exhibits similar degrees of elegance and proportion. The occasional jarring zoom aside, Mendonça shoots in leisurely wide-screen takes, edited at a pace that better suits Heitor Villa-Lobos (subject of a book by Clara) than the creators of Fat Bottomed Girls (which gets its first outing at this year's festival).

The script touches on questions of inequality and racism in Brazil, but Clara is a creation that could slot into almost any cultural environment. In every street there’s a woman determined to live life as it should be lived.