The Staggering Girl

Actress playing daughter looks fairly haggard and at most a couple years younger. This stretches credibility of the scenes together

User reviews are to harsh. The movie is beautiful and amusing even though its script isn't as good as its cinematography.

This enigmatic little memory piece may be only 37 minutes long but it still typifies the worst kind of art-house. A superb cast, (Julianne Moore, Marthe Keller, Kyle MacLachlan, KiKi Layne), mooch about in the past and in the present but none of them manage to engage us on any level other than the banal. The director is Luca Guadagnino and this must rank as nothing more than a doodle on his CV, the kind of film that established film-makers with too much power and money, but perhaps limited imagination, make simply because they can. If, like me, you admire the director's other work it's best you give this one a miss.

'The Staggering Girl' brings together a group of creative geniuses. Directed by Luca Guadagnino, a filmmaker whose work can both satisfy lovers of art house and popular films, the film stars in the lead roles Julianne Moore, Marthe Keller, KiKi Layne and Kyle MacLachlan, impeccably dressed in Valentino garments, with a film score by the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto.

In short, the film is about an Italian-American writer working on her autobiography and rethinking her life, who has to move back to Rome to take care of her mother. The structure of the film is complex, with a thin line between reality, flashbacks and fantasies.

Instead of occupying yourself with a minute understanding of the film's plot, I would rather advise the viewer to sit back for 35 minutes and enjoy the extreme visual refinement, in (among others) the camera work, dresses, and the picturesque Italian landscape, in combination with the spellbinding soundtrack. The last scene left me with a sheer feeling of joy and fulfilment.

It's not just the font of the opening credits that winks at Woodyphiles, we also see hints of "Another Woman" in its flashbacks, cold earth tones seen in costumes, settings and cinematography itself. We even hear a woman's confessions through what might be a vent similar to the character of Marianne in Woody's Bergmanesque chamber piece. The director gives a nod to "Autumn Sonata" playing with the mother/daughter relationship. Both Woody and Luca relish in the use of flashbacks where characters peer into their pasts as the are "played out" in front of them. One of Woody's favorite themes makes an appearance in the struggle of the artist and how hat struggle affects those closest to them. A fine homage to two masterful filmmakers (Bergman and Allen) and one might want to add Luca into the pantheon of the (film) giants.