Libero

recently i saw this movie in a TV channel. i don't know about the actors and directorial details of this film.but those people are doing their job very well.especially the boy,he is the best choice for the character.the father character,particularly in the scene where he angry with his son ,when his wife cheating him scoring our attention fully.later i know he is the director of the film.finally,the story is well written .totally the film is simple and beauty.maybe its a melodrama,but it has a message as 'anything will happen life,but life must go on'.this film reflects the modern family life and the sensual problems of children and the parents.the camera work is well done.especially the swimming competition scene.it proves even the small budget films also have the perfect camera works.after a long time it is the mind blowing job along the recently watched films of mine.

I think this debut by Kim Rossi Stuart is the true best Italian movie of the season 2005/2006. It's even better than "Romanzo criminale" (Michele Placido) and "Il Caimano" (Nanni Moretti). It's so touching and subtle it doesn't seem a debut, but we must remind that Kim Rossi Stuart was already quite experienced as an actor.

The acting is phenomenal. Alessandro Morace (the lone Tommi) is the best child actor I've ever seen: he's natural, and he has got magnificent, sad eyes who can talk more than a speech. And Marta Nobili (the joyful Tommi's sister, Viola) doesn't confine herself to simper graciously as Dakota Fanning usually does. Kim Rossi Stuart and Barbora Bobulova are good too, but they were only confirmations.

Cinematography and score are accurate and remarkable, considering that this film's budget was very small.

And, let me say, Kim Rossi Stuart doing the ironing wearing only a pair of slips and a close-fitting T-shirt is a fantastic sight.

Through a look at the life of a crumbling lower middle class family in Rome, first-time director Kim Stuart Rossi takes a surprisingly honest look at a number of issues, like divorce, and the role of males in contemporary Western European society. The movie is true to life in the best sense: the characters are very similar to people you know. Rossi Stuart also stars in the movie, playing a single father, living precariously as a cameraman, and having to take care of a young son and a teenage daughter (his irresponsible wife is in and out of the house, as the son explains to a rich neighbor and friend). The movie is shown through the eyes of the shy son, but I think the real protagonist is the father, a great dramatic creation of actor-director Rossi. He is a man with an explosive temper, always getting into trouble and thinking the whole world is against him, but he is not a bad person per se; it's just that his hyper masculine values seem to hold less and less value in today's society. Barbora Bolubova, playing the troubled wife, is also very fine. The end is a bit despairing, though as he says in the end, he has been down before, but has always bounced back.

This film is about a family of four and told through the character of Tommi, an 11-year old boy. His sister is a nuisance, and he has trouble getting friends in school.

The mother of the family has some psychological issues and disappears for weeks, then returns for a few weeks of nuclear family bliss.

The father is a poor, stressed out cameraman struggling to find work. He goes from loving and caring role-model-father to angry, rampaging mad in seconds.

The tensions between all four members of the family are really done well, the film is believable and very emotional. Both adults and children in this story give great acting performances.

Kim is relaxed, acting and directing beautifully, fantastic debut as a first time director. He has somehow managed to achieve with Alessandro Morace the kind of performance from a child that does not exist anymore. Children in current films have become insufferable, overacting, distracting hammy, annoying elements in film today. Though now that I have said it I realize they are not much different than the adults. All the actors in this film were excellent, the story compelling and it is the first time I have ever seen a character, like my own father, portrayed so perfectly on film and also the reactions of the child. I understood the characters in this film so well that it was unbearably painful for me to watch.