Willkommen im Süden

Very nice and funny movie that manages to disassemble some stereotypes of the south keeping others in a very funny way. A film that makes everyone laugh and teaches great values such as friendship.

This is a curiously lame re-versioning of a French film, which was much more successful on many levels, the most important being the direction. WTTS is an awkward experience for this audience member; it's full of good farcical ideas and nice, broad characters, but it never really comes to life, because the staging, the timing and the acting all miss the mark. You can see how good it could have been, how many of the scenes, played differently would have worked. Alas it's mostly flat, overly sentimental but cheerful. The only actor in the cast with whom I'm familiar is Angela Finocchiaro, whom I very much admired in "Don't Tell" - in which she gave a funny and moving performance. Here she's not given much to do beyond acting out the demands of of her caricatured character and the unlikely turns of the plot. I kept expecting her to be funny, but I was always disappointed. I attribute this to poor writing and even poorer direction. It's often extraordinary how certain scenes are staged - as though the director is anti-comedy.

It's a sentimental comedy - a bit pathetic. This is the limit of the current cinema in Italy. we have no sense of irony, then you can have only from one side the desperation of Gomorrah, and on the other "plastic" comedies like this one. It is very difficult to find popular movies comparable with the old Italian masterpieces. The characters are not credible and not funny. This movie depicts a more stereotypical vision of the Italian than the Sopranos' TV series - By the way, it is curios that a TV-serial made in US is more effective to depict some of the Italian culture than movies made in Italy. As Italians, we have no way to reflect to our conditions, improve ourselves and avoid to be stuck to the same old stereotypes: Pizza,Sole,Mandolino with the difference that in this movie Mafia is just a fiction - a set inside the set just to save Alberto's marriage - this is very sad, and not funny at all.

This movie is a remake of a French movie: "Bienvenue chez les ch'tis" which is the higher French box office of all times and it is even better than the original. I fluently speak French,I saw, understood and liked the original one but I loved this one better, maybe because I can understand better the difference of mentality between southern and northern Italian people (I'm Italian myself). Both movies are really funny and positive. It should be interesting an American remake. The idea could be: let's send a white racist man to work in a black neighbour and make him understand how much black people can be nice, funny and friendly. The story: a racist guy from Milan (north Italy) is transfered from a post office in Milan to another one in a little southern city and after many funny situations he falls in love for this new place (I don't want to spoil more). I suggest to every Italian moviegoer to watch this little great movie, maybe it will not change your way to think but for sure it will make you laughing.

I didn't dislike it but it's quite a banal story with banal situations. I do not like Saini but Bisio is a really good actor. If you want to watch a light comedy, go for this.