Brown Bread Sandwiches

La Famiglia Buonanotte is an intelligent, sometimes dark, comedy that has many poignant moments about immigrant Italian life in 1950's Canada. The young boy who narrates some of the story makes the audience truly appreciate his desire to belong in this new country, and his attempts to fit in are often very funny. The rest of the family and its tenants downstairs play a precarious game of survival in a cramped household that breeds insecurity, competition and downright cattiness. Kim Cattrall is wonderfully amusing as a dissatisfied wife who tries to disrupt everyone's life. Kim Coates is hilarious as her blustering, loudmouth husband. Lina Sastri, as the matriarch of the household, plays matchmaker for the tenants downstairs to rather unexpected results. Giancarlo Giannini turns in a subtle yet charming performance as a man who resigns himself to his lot in life. La Famiglia Buonanotte has some wonderful moments that are both funny and touching because they reveal only too well the truth about life and love.

a friend of mine loaned me this movie recently, thinking i might like a trip back in time to my growing up years in a cramped tenement in Brooklyn, NY.... i'm sure that every nationality of immigrants can relate to writer/director carlo liconti as this son of Sicilian immigrants sure did,,,several generations of one family, living with upstairs and downstairs tenants and the squabbles, family secrets, hopes and desires of all played out in the most realistic portrayal of what seemed like my life, ,,even if you're not Italian, take the time to see this movie,,,little Michelangelo will delight you with his wit and facial expressions as he moves you thru all the actors and their dreams and exploits, any one of which most of us can relate to