L'ami de la famille

Even if the character of the protagonist is chiseled good enough to make you feel awkward, ot is too much effort put to into doing that and too little time spent on making a working plot. It's obvious that the film lack all evidence of any intention to provide a logic to the audience even if there could have bern, cutting some 30 minutes of the build-up, and adding something instead that builds the story and the characters...the end is stressed and lack all the necessary emotional and logical build-up that could have changed this turkey into a sustainable film...in the end the only feeling remaining is that someone stole your time leaving you with nothing...

Didn't manage to make it to the end of the film and was left with a feeling of disgust. There is no real plot line, it is essentially just a sequence of scenes picturing this squalid man behaving inappropriately towards different women. Additionally this is pieced together in a try-hard way to try making the film artsy which the film does not accomplish.

Amateurish and useless. Could not get to the end.

We forgive Sorrentino since he directed "il divo" Nothing else to add to even to get to the 150 catacthers.

In a word, weird form the outset. From the opening creepy noises and extreme visual stimulation to the random cuts and bizarre set pieces 'The Family Friend' is nothing if not captivating. Its directed superbly by Paolo Sorrentino, whose last film the 'The Consequences of Love' should give you some idea of his visual style and flair, add to this the great cinematography, brilliant use of music and the twisted central performance of Giacomo Rizzo as Geremia and you have a truly excellent if not a little disturbing movie which is part Lynch, Part Fellini and all original. Geremia is a seventy year old tailor which is actually a cover for the fact he is a loan shark. Lonely and sleazy he prays on the needy and during the loan deals poses as a family friend to surround himself with people. One such family borrows money for their daughters wedding and Geremia becomes self appointed helper and starts arranging things for the young couple. Eventually he falls for the bride to be, a winner of the local beauty pageant, and the film becomes a kind of beauty and the beast tale. She is the gorgeous young girl overly fond of dancing and he amongst other things is a seedy, beastly rapist. The films characters are pretty much all unredeemable and it comes across like an Italian 'League of Gentlemen' with its dark humour and strange set ups. The music adds to the weirdness by ranging from Anthony and the Johnsons to classical and country and western. Just like 'Hidden' from last year the film leaves loads of unanswered questions and loose ends but that adds to its deconstructed nature and doesn't detract in anyway from the main story. Its in the smaller things that this film shines like when everyone takes their own chairs to the beauty contest as 'the sponsor and provider of seats pulled out at the last minute' or how Geremia's carrier bag swings from side to side over his plastered arm as he waddles along in schoolboy short trousers. This film won't be to everyone's liking, it is almost certainly an acquired taste, but those that can get under its skin won't be disappointed and will love it for all its creepy eccentricities

Sorrentino never hides his true fatherhood from which he inspired his films. Fellini. In this film, the main character Geremia states that he starred in two of the films of the great Italian director. In "The Family Friend" you can already guess Sorrentino's future masterpieces. Films touched by a well-balanced dose of surrealism, very well-studied baroque scenography, but especially the drama of the characters, which does not lack the permanent note of vague Mediterranean humor. Even Geremia, a hateful character, has some glimpses of humanity and manages to become acceptable in some scenes. A very good movie, very well played, which does not lack the thriller. A film about pathological greed, ugliness, lack of empathy but especially the inability to understand love.