Had the trappings of a dysfunctional family dramadey, but sans much comedy. A family of four with the two kids about to leave the nest, caught my middle-aging eye (as opposed to my aging middle eye). The couple dealing with weariness on the surface with each other, but perhaps more truthfully with themselves...the tension of teenagers trying on adult situations too, these set me up with enough interest.
All four family members come with their own crises, largely self-made and each oblivious to the others in the family. For some reason that obliviousness seemed to hurt me the viewer, more than the characters themselves.
The father and son in the movie confuse sex with love. Italian men may do this better than others, it's debatable. The women stumble through sex while trying to find their careers, but each career is contingent upon the applause of others (art-house small theatre for mom, solid gold dancing and canned TV clapping for the daughter).
By the way, all four family members are drop-dead good looking. Three are insecure about it, while the daughter pretty much banks on her beauty. She literally sleeps with her mirror, both soundly and while in coitus with a stepping stone stage hand leading towards the television altar. Does it matter that the role is literally that of a harem girl.
To make the family members see each other, Dad is sent reeling by an old flame, even more powerfully attractive than the stunning mother. The flame's (Monica Belluci's) beauty is only over-shadowed by a vacant beach-house that her mother owns somewhere on the shoreline of heaven.
Typically in these movies, we are fed some transcendent family epiphany as they rally together while facing their flaws. And I often don't mind those moments as I think there are genuine truths within them, but this film does something a bit bizarre.
Spoiler coming...
The car accident that nearly kills the father and as expected thereby saves the father, feels really wrong. Comments in the chat section of IMDb talk about Carlo at the end, the forced smile and the not-so-chance meeting the bellisima Belluci-ma. Also we see she that her character did in fact leave her husband.
A day after watching this, I cannot shake the notion that this movie seems like an apology from the director (or the writer or a producer) to his lover for not leaving his family. And something tells me his own "car wreck" preventing him from joining her was only a symbolic one.
I'm certain his jilted lover will always remember him, and not as kindly as this film would have one believe.
All four family members come with their own crises, largely self-made and each oblivious to the others in the family. For some reason that obliviousness seemed to hurt me the viewer, more than the characters themselves.
The father and son in the movie confuse sex with love. Italian men may do this better than others, it's debatable. The women stumble through sex while trying to find their careers, but each career is contingent upon the applause of others (art-house small theatre for mom, solid gold dancing and canned TV clapping for the daughter).
By the way, all four family members are drop-dead good looking. Three are insecure about it, while the daughter pretty much banks on her beauty. She literally sleeps with her mirror, both soundly and while in coitus with a stepping stone stage hand leading towards the television altar. Does it matter that the role is literally that of a harem girl.
To make the family members see each other, Dad is sent reeling by an old flame, even more powerfully attractive than the stunning mother. The flame's (Monica Belluci's) beauty is only over-shadowed by a vacant beach-house that her mother owns somewhere on the shoreline of heaven.
Typically in these movies, we are fed some transcendent family epiphany as they rally together while facing their flaws. And I often don't mind those moments as I think there are genuine truths within them, but this film does something a bit bizarre.
Spoiler coming...
The car accident that nearly kills the father and as expected thereby saves the father, feels really wrong. Comments in the chat section of IMDb talk about Carlo at the end, the forced smile and the not-so-chance meeting the bellisima Belluci-ma. Also we see she that her character did in fact leave her husband.
A day after watching this, I cannot shake the notion that this movie seems like an apology from the director (or the writer or a producer) to his lover for not leaving his family. And something tells me his own "car wreck" preventing him from joining her was only a symbolic one.
I'm certain his jilted lover will always remember him, and not as kindly as this film would have one believe.