Gli sfiorati

You can tell a lot about someone from their handwriting. Mète (Andrea Bosca) knows this because he's a graphologist, a handwriting specialist who is called upon to identify cases of forgery and false wills. He might be an expert in identifying character traits in handwriting, but Mète's own life is not so easily categorised. He's a bit too uptight however to fit into a baffling group of people that his colleague Bruno (Claudio Santamaria) calls 'gli sfiorati', 'drifters' whose personality and writing seems to change from one line to the next.

The idea of the drifter in handwriting is a good metaphor and it helps establish where Gli Sfiorati is going when it seems to be drifting itself. You can see that Mète has issues around the loss of his mother and a sense of abandonment by his father, but it still doesn't really account for him wanting to keep out of the way of his half-sister Belinda (Miriam Giovanelli) who has come to stay in his apartment during the preparations for his father's new wedding. Nor does it explain why he can scarcely summon up any interest in the hottest girl in Rome (Asia Argento), who is crazy about him.

With some episodes involving his estate agent friend Damiano (Michele Biondino) extending the theme, there's a sense that Gli Sfiorati is referring to a drifting generation in a wider sense; a generation without roots and tradition, where money is all that matters and can buy happiness and otherwise inaccessible women. But for how long can you drift on that basis? The matter baffles Bruno, but you get a sense that he and Mète probably think too much, examining the surface handwriting without actually reading what is written for real clues.

It's amusing to consider this as a solution while you wait for Mète to figure out what is wrong with his life, because Matteo Rovere film doesn't offer much in the way of clues, appropriately finding a rhythm that exists outside of any conventional narrative exposition. The solution provided however comes across as a little too neat without really finding any satisfying explanation for gli sfiorati or why Mète might be about to join their number. Maybe it's just Youth, or maybe we all have the potential to be gli sfiorati.

Boy, has a crucial basic detail about this film been misunderstood! To be absolutely clear: Méte and Belinda ARE related. They share the same biological father, but have different mothers, so they're half brother and sister. Not step siblings, as some reviewers on here have mistakenly concluded.

Admittedly it's a subtlety easily missed, particularly if you're watching this with subtitles as a non-Italian speaker. But no, contrary to what some reviewers have said, this isn't just Méte's father re-marrying another woman who has a daughter of her own; he's marrying the woman he's been having a long term relationship/affair with. The timeline, roughly, is that Méte's father left Méte's mother when Méte was young, and had a 20 year affair with Virna - the product of that relationship is his 17 year old daughter (and therefore Méte's half-sister), Belinda. This is spelled out in the dinner scene with Méte and Virna (Belinda's mother), where she says that she's loved Méte's father for 20 years, and that Belinda takes after her father. I think the part that confuses people is that Sergio and Virna are getting married, and so people assume it's a "step family", missing the fact that Belinda is Sergio's child as well. It's implied that after the 20 year affair, they're only now getting married because Méte's mother has died.

Anyway, sorry to go into such detail on this point, but so many reviewers on here have got this fundamental aspect wrong that I think the record really does need definitively correcting.

As for the film itself...it's an entertaining comedy drama, very stylishly shot and with an attractive cast. The taboo aspect adds an extra frisson of tension - and is definitely part of the film, despite some people thinking it isn't!

I cannot believe that the reviewers seem to be following the erroneous plot summary. The two siblings in this film are not related at all when they "get together."

They are age of consent offspring of two completely different sets of four parents. At the time of the getting together they are not related whatsoever, and even after their parents marry, they are just STEP kids, no blood relation whatsoever. One is 17 and one is 19 which is full age of consent in Italy.

This a light-hearted, and at best. Average comedy, where the relationship is AWKWARD -- but not anything like incest. For example it would be legal for these two "siblings" to marry in every US state and in every European country as well as Canada or Australia.

This movie includes a sex scene which is very nice... They must cut the scene from the movie and must make a new movie that is with better story and includes that scene.

If you are interested in this because of the supposed taboo ... well relationship that may or may not be ... consumed ... well let's just say that this is a drama rather than a wet dream (or nightmare, depending on where you stand on the issue).

Furthermore as I'm certain others may have explained too: this is not as taboo as you may think or some may have made it to be. First of all the actress was an adult at the time of shooting and supposedly even if she was 17, her future step brother 19 (so no blood relation to begin with - not even a tiny bit) - not something that would be criminal in any sense. And since there is no blood relation there is no other crime here either - if anything was to come of the whole thing. Hypothetically speaking ... still there is more than just a whiff of awkwardness flying around.

Having said that, there is also an interesting subplot with Asia Argento who looks lovely as ever ... and plays another broken character - which also is something to be expected. If you are aware of certain things and don't expect this to be anything this is not (see above, only a little bit of nudity) ... the movie actually delivers.