La prima cosa bella

This was a beautiful emotional movie. I really liked the actors in this movie because it seemed like they had a good chemistry on and off screen - for some reason I just had that feeling about it. The movie was emotional to me obviously because of the storyline and death, or the idea of death and having to watch your family member(s) slowly slip away from you, whether death or just estranged. However, I would absolutely recommend this film because it is the type of film that is relatable to anyone who doesn't have a perfect family nor a perfect life... in that case, EVERYONE. If a film HAS to be sad, I also like a film that can make me laugh, too, and this one did just that. It was a good balance to where the film isn't depressing, no fun in that. 10/10 would recommend it to a friend.

I recently saw this at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. This film picked up three prestigious Donatello Awards (Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Screenplay) in Italy and is that country's official submission to the 83rd Academy Awards Best Foreign Film category. The story begins in the 1971 when Anna (Michella Ramazzotti), the beautiful wife of Mario (Sergio Albelli) wins a local Mrs. beauty pageant. The jealous Mario eventually throws out Anna and their two children and so begins their journey throughout this film that leads to the present day where the older Anna (Stefania Sandrelli) is dying and her daughter Valeria (Claudia Pandolfi) coaxes her brother Bruno (Valerio Mastanrea), now a professor who has a drug problem and has become estranged from his mother and sister, to pay his last respects while Anna is still alive. Told in a series of flashbacks to the past interwoven very smartly with the present this is a clever film and story with lots of wit and charm and a great cast. Also stars Fabriza Sacchi as Sandra, Anna's estranged sister. Anna stole Sandra's boyfriend Mario and when Mario and Anna split he returned to Sandra. There are lots of interesting subplots and a great supporting cast including the young actors who play Bruno and Valeria in childhood and as teenagers. Paolo Virzi directs this film and his real-life wife Ramazzotti in a family friendly manner where violence and sex are implied and not gratuitous. Nicely shot by veteran cameraman Nicola Pecorini in his feature film debut as a cinematographer. Film veterans Production Designer Tonino Zera, Set Decorator Donato Tieppo and Costume Designer Gabriella Pescucci have a clever collective eye for detail in recreating the flashback scenes of the 1970's and blend them seamlessly with the look of present day with the help of Film Editor Simone Manetti. Writer/Director Virzi wrote the original story for film with the intention of making it seem like it was adapted from a novel help of co-screenwriters Francesco Bruni and Francesco Picolo. Virzi and Ramazzotti were on hand at my screening for a Q&A. I would give this an 8.5 out of 10 and recommend it.

Told in flashbacks, this is the story of Anna, young mother of two, who in the Seventies gets thrown out by her jealous husband after winning a beauty competition for the most beautiful mother and must carve a life for herself and her children, even if she has no skills or instruction and only her attractiveness to sell.

In her own way, Anna is a good mother, but both Bruno and Valeria, her boy and girl will suffer some consequences of their unconventional upbringing.

I found the flashbacks very relatable since I am Italian and I grew up in that time frame. Therefore it felt like a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

The part in the present is less convincing and I did not like at all Mastrandrea's interpretation of the grown up Bruno. Sandrelli as the older Anna is good and her story line quite moving.

I rated the movie quite high for my own sentimental reasons, although the present day part of the history could have been done better and the plot is slightly overlong.

A beautiful and touching movie. The actors are really good - Pandolfi and Mastandrea deliver probably their best performance ever, while the common effort of Stefania Sandrelli and Micaela Rammazzotti depicts a wonderful, unforgettable female lead character, that somehow accomplish the not so easy task of being at the same time down-to-earth and larger-than-life. The story is full of grief and pain, and thanks to the overall great acting performance, those feelings seem so real that they will make you suffer (and cry). At the same time, anyway, the script is full of funny moments that will make you laugh, and laughs will wash away the tears – you know, just like in the real life. Strongly recommended to anybody.

I live near director's town of birth, the town where this movie is set, too, and I had, last summer, the great opportunity to see how this man works, and I can say he's so nice and he tries to be calm, even when the actors (the younger ones, in particular) couldn't do that he wants.

But I've noticed an other thing: production was very very rich (in economical terms), and maybe my judge could be partial, but when I've seen this movie, I've seen a beautiful story, rich of messages and themes (family, and the incapability to repudiate that; impossibility to escape from past and nostalgia; against the drug, even if it could seem the opposite etc..), so great job as regards the screenplay; acting is good, although many actors were very young, and "for first time on screen"; photograph is quite good (some scene have a big and quite bad using of color correction), and sounds are right.

I think (joking) Virzì is happy whenever he reaches to export his accent in the world, and his own crusade includes, in my opinion, the justice for the speaking, which before him it was the same for Florence and Tuscany's Coast. In this way, actors like Mastrandrea and Pandolfi show their great capability to give a great interpretation even with a different accent (both come from Rome).

But the worst side of the movie I think it's the shoots. They aren't bad, but probably I believed Virzì's work had a greater attention for originality, and I asked me why, with the big quantity of entourage and money he had, he forgot the attention for the originality in shooting. The shoots are many times ordinary, far from other great movies, like Fellini's Amarcord, which the review Ciak had compared with this.

With an other kind of shoots (or maybe is just the video editing, I hope) which gives to movie that "ordinary taste", breaking a little part of amazing magic of the movie, this could be one of the greatest works of Virzì, because is a personal and introspective work, like Italians know to do very well.

Although this, "La Prima Cosa Bella" is able to move the spectator, and it's a good movie, but just a little better than the standard of the genre. My final vote is a 7,5.