It stars Matheus Nachtergaele, Jonas Bloch, Dira Paes, Chico Díaz, and Leona Cavalli as working-class people who engage in amorous and social encounters, with most of the action taking place in a hotel and a bar.

This is followed by a montage of everyday city life, ending with Kika deciding to dye her hair in mango yellow, the same shade that made Isaac so attracted to Lígia.

Writing for The New York Times, Stephen Holden interpreted the film's message as follows: "This is how the lower half lives in Brazil, and by extension, humanity at its most basic, getting along without the rose-colored protections that affluence affords.

[3] Bloch's character shooting corpses represents "a harmless, symbolic addiction" in the same way other aspects of the film "come from it, this violence within us".

[8] Assis criticized the fact that several directors like to "glamorize poverty," and as such, he characterized his characters to show the people's vice.

[3] José Geraldo Couto of Folha de S. Paulo wrote that the film shows that "the miserable are not dear waiting for the mercy of others, but are full of life, willing to kill or die to fulfill their desires and instincts".

[9] Deborah Young of Variety opined that the mango yellow color represents both "the jaundiced shade of their broken dreams" and their sense "of nonconformity and feeling alive.

[13] Couto wrote that the "gratuitous series of aberrations" presented in Texas Hotel was turned into an "articulate narrative and full of meaning".

[15] It was shot with 35 mm cameras brought from São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro,[5] and filming took place in five weeks between September and October 2001.

[3] Though he was unsure how to include this element, the yellow-colored pubic hair matched the book Tempo Amarelo ("Yellow Time"), by sociologist Renato Carneiro Campos.

[3][16] The title of the film was borrowed from the book, in which the author describes the "rotten teeth of children, the color of poverty in the country".

[17] Mango Yellow's premiere was held at the Festival do Rio on October 4, 2002,[16] while it was released on domestic theaters on August 15, 2003.

[18] Mango Yellow grossed R$769,750, with a viewership of 129,021 people in the sixteen Brazilian theaters in which it was shown,[2] representing the twelfth largest audience for a domestic film in 2003.

[8][14] Cinepop critic Andrea Don declared it a film that viewers would either love or hate, concluding that "you will not leave the cinema's room the same as you entered".

[4] Solis praised it, saying "the real pleasure" in the film is that Assis "doesn't recur to exploitation to make these people memorable".