Caterina va in città

I think Virzì is one of the most interesting director in Italy, at the present moment. His ability to portray the current Italian society is quite good, and he achieves this either with *characters* (the two families in "Ferie d'Agosto", the father in "Caterina va in città") and with *stories* (the story of "Ovosodo", a bit of an Italian "It's a wonderful life"... just a bit, obviously... :-).

"Caterina va in città" is a good movie: the idea of showing chunks of the Italian society and habits through the eyes of an innocent teenager gives the movie a "fairy tale" twist that makes it really "light" and enjoyable. I also liked the mom's character, played by a really good and beautiful Margherita Buy: in general, I appreciated Virzì's idea that the "good" part of society is based on the strength of women, as all male characters in this movie either are donquixotesque losers or spoiled and arrogant over-grown babies.

But, as for most of his movies, I think the same criticism again apply: Virzì is openly a left-wing director, but he stresses this a bit too much and sometimes its works sound too "ideological": art should make you think, not tell you what to think, I guess. In addiction, some characters are too stereotypical and don't come out of a really deep psychological analysis. Still, I think he is currently the director who knows best how to take on the screen what goes on in Italy.

In conclusion, I think this movie - just like "Ovosodo" - is based on a simple yet powerful assumption: that happiness is the disease of the idiots...

CATERINA IN THE BIG CITY offers a novel and original approach to The Teen Genre. A timeless 'Coming of Age' tale is portrayed with truth and style, although the specifics of contemporary Italian politics lose a bit in translation, even a viewer who is ignorant of European politics is not left in the dark. Caterina (played by Alice Teghil) is a junior high school aged student who relocates to Rome with her family. Her father is a frustrated teacher who feels that his career has been sidetracked in the sleepy, coastal town of Monalto, and looks forward to the possibility of social and intellectual advancement in the big city. Soon, he runs up against the stratified nature of Italian society, and Caterina encounters the same setup, but within her school system. From her first day in class, she meets classmates who toss around political jeremiads which they don't really comprehend, but are very emotionally attached. Although, by the end of the school year, Caterina is moved and changed by her experiences, she seems to understand that these emotionally charged names and categories never tell the whole story, and really amount to passionate clichés. Paolo Virzì, the director, is known in Italy for his ability to examine the entrenched nature of Italian politics with humor and insight. CATERINA IN THE BIG CITY an intelligent look at what it is like to live in a stratified society, and to strive to locate your unique and proper place.

I am a student in Australia, in year 9, 15 years old, studying Italian at LaSalle Catholic College Bankstown. I viewed this film as an excursion 3 days ago, and I loved it. I feel for Caterina because I guess I am a little naive in a way. She didn't realize that people were using her, she didn't realize that Margherita liked her in a different, more romantic way, she didn't know about a lot that went on in Rome. It was a very nice, dramatic and funny storyline, and i suppose it appeals to a large audience. I rated it 9/10. I took off 1 mark because I feel not enough was shown of Edward, the guy she loved, the guy from "down under", the guy who most Australians can identify with. He played a prime role in my eyes because he brought her life back on track when she had run away. A little more could have also been shown of Fabietto and Agata's relationship. This film was an excellent representation of the comparison between the posh side of Italy and the grateful and appreciative side of Italy

One of the best movie I've seen recently. An exciting coming of age, an exhilarating comedy, a deep and painful portrait of our society at the present moment."Caterina Va in Città" has outrageously funny scenes — starting with Giancarlo's biting farewell to his despised small-town students. But it's a very dark sense of humor. The film is really about personalities, especially his. Imagine a standard coming-of- age movie about a smart, unusual kid learning that it's okay to be an individual, different from the rest. Giancarlo is that kid, only he's 40-something and he hasn't had that final scene where everything turns out okay. Angry that others have gotten all the breaks in life, he righteously criticizes the establishment, big money, the old boys' network, and yet envies them at the same time. Back in Rome, he has a chance to mingle with exactly the class of people he inwardly resents, and every chance he gets to make a mark among them turns to embarrassment.

Played with great flair by Sergio Castellitto (the insouciant chef from "Mostly Martha"), Giancarlo is an enormously sympathetic but uncomfortable character, and his contradictions have a ripple effect on everyone in his orbit. His wife Agata (Margherita Buy) lives in a shell rather than get in the way of her grandiose husband. Caterina (Alice Teghil) is thrust uneasily into a social scene she's thoroughly unprepared for, made even more out of place by her dad's instructions. She doesn't seem to have inherited his low self-esteem, but this new life flies way over her head most of the time. It's a complex portrait of a family's struggle, set amid the tumult of big-city society and class consciousness. "Caterina" is a very rewarding movie.

Caterina gives us an opportunity to feel and a chance to hope. A young girl both naive and somehow mature, she is unsure of what she wants in life. Her task is learning to navigate the waters of a high school in Rome where she is the new girl from the sticks when her father is transfered from a small town on the coast. He fulfills his dream of returning to the cultural mecca of the capital where he hopes to take his "rightful" place among the intelligentsia. But the film turns on just this point–"rightful place". There are no simple answers, though we do have an opportunity to see how complex it is to find one's place, rightful or not, in the world. Caterina is something of a metaphor for the Italian populace at large, I would think. But she is more than this. There is something about her story that touched me, several decades and half a world away from the world she inhabits, a world stratified by cliques and patronage, prejudice and injustice...a world very much like the one I live in and the one I imagine most of us live in. Caterina–as the film that bears her name–does not take the easy way out in running away or self-repression or living a life of quiet desperation, even when her sheltered provincial upbringing and less-than-ideal family situation do not give her any clues on how to deal with her new life and classmates from prominent families. She tries to adjust to the fast-pace and superficiality of life in the Italian capital, and much of the fun of the movie is seeing her in the various situations she encounters along the way. Her father is great as the frustrated writer with no talent and a loud voice, a self-important boor. My heart goes out to all the Caterinas of the world, who go forward with optimism and pure heart even when they know the odds are against them.