Jean-Claude Bernardet, Brazil’s most important living film critic, is old and sick, but tries to reinvent himself through his long disintegration. Shifting between fiction and documentary, A Destruição de Bernardet uses unusual tools to trigger his memory and to make him tell his story.

Jean feels trapped in the logic of longevity that the pharmaceutical industry imposes on him and decides to plan a conscious suicide. He invites Helena to commit suicide to two. She, on the other hand, hesitates, knows that she will live well even if she needs to live alone, but she helps him in his intentions. The silence between them does not reveal distance, but intimacy. These are years of shared affection. Together, they will prepare all the details for the funeral. He dances death while she continues rehearsing life. In the process, the two realize that before the end, there is still a lifetime.