"It's the first film I've done where I've suddenly felt I'm in the middle bracket," he said. "I was always one of the youngest ones, and now I'm not."

When the researchers divided the teens into five income groups, those in the lowest bracket were 22 percent less likely than the middle bracket to have had a drink in the past 6 months.

Brazil's middle class is swelling: at the last count there were 97m people in marketing bracket "c", which means they are rich enough to contemplate getting on an aeroplane.