Ricordati di me

The only way this soap opera turned into a feature film could have redeemed itself would have been with a "Godfather"-like ending: all of the offending parties (and God knows this family was filled with nothing but 'tipi antipatici') would be liquidated at the very end, as just retribution for their total 'antipatia'. This movie has not a single character in it who is likable, which, I suppose, makes for an interesting cinematographic exercise: you'd like to get up and leave these horrible people to themselves and the screen, but you can't bring yourself to do it because you're hoping that the director will obliterate them for you at some point in the film.

I watched "Ricordati di me" and it felt like a polite conversation that avoids self criticism and only accepts one's personal dreams and ambitions. A conversation that accomplishes nothing since the subconscious is too scared to embark on the dreams because there is no safety net.

'Remember Me, My Love,' as it is known in North America, is a great film that reveals the superficial mask of the family unit. It is the story of a family and its progressive loss of balance between the self and the public sphere of conventional happiness. This film begins beautifully with the personal woes of the family members and the audience can sense the inevitable tipping of the cauldron.

The crossroads for most of the characters is based upon their personal potential and their own self-interests versus the ones created by their environments. For Carlo Ristuccia (played wonderfully by Fabrizio Bentivoglio), Giulia (another great performance by Laura Morante) and Alessia (played by the very talented Monica Belucci) the question at hand is based upon their waning existence. They all seem to feel lost and monotone while they struggle to feel the youthful sensation of bliss and love. The opening sequence is perfectly written and shot to portray the Ristuccias one dimensional life. The screenplay, subtle in its work, progressively displays the inevitable choices to be made by the members of the Ristuccia family.

However, as the characters embark on their selfish adventures, they digress from their intentions and they seem to blindly be repeating their mistakes. Giulia attempts to reconcile her acting career yet fails to see the theme of the play as a reflection of her own state. Carlo, failing to write the last chapter of his novel, never completes his work because he is afraid to risk and lose. He, along with the rest of his family, tries to balance between the want and the need. A problem that is never realized - even in the end.

"Remember Me, My Love" is a film that could have benefited from some slight editing, especially concerning Valentina's storyline, yet the end product leaves you feeling like the characters - a false sense of hope but a bigger sense of loss. This film strikes a reminiscent chord for its audience because it deals with loss - the loss of dreams, the loss of love - and its battle with throwing in the towel. None of the characters experience true happiness however they've convinced themselves at times. The first and final shot sum up the film beautifully as it questions the choices made by each of the man characters. It's all a facade, so enjoy the show.

In the dysfunctional Italian middle-class family Ristuccia, the middle-aged executive Carlo (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) has a stalled life without passion, bored in his work and having a monotonous life with his wife Giulia (Laura Morante). Giulia is a frustrated and hysterical woman because she gave up of being an actress in her youth to dedicate to the family. Their needy son Paolo (Silvio Muccino) feels lost and rejected, trying to find who he is and flirting with a schoolmate. Their seventeen years old daughter Valentina (Nicoletta Romanoff) is decided to work in a television show, and is fighting to have an audition. When Carlo meets his former sweetheart Alessia (Monica Bellucci) in a class reunion, they confess to each other that their marriages are in crisis and both feel passion arising again. Meanwhile Giulia is invited to an audition in a stage production and to participate of a play. Paolo tries to make friends using marijuana in his birthday party, and Valentina has sex with different guys trying to be a dancer of the famous TV show 'Ali Babbi'. Their relationships change when Carlo has an accident.

Two years ago, I saw "L'Ultimo Bacio" on DVD, a beautiful and delightful movie about relationship in different phases of life directed by Gabriele Muccino. I was impressed with this director, and recently it was released "Recordati di me" on DVD in Brazil. I have just watched and it is amazing the sensibility of this director with the dynamics and feelings of a family, presenting a tale of passion, frustration and dreams. The realistic relationships between the members of this common middle-class family is disclosed though the lost dreams and passions of the parents, and the dreams and aspirations of their son and daughter. The cast is amazing, with a sensational Laura Morante, the stunning Monica Bellucci, the sexy Nicoletta Romanoff and the impressive Fabrizio Bentivoglio and Silvio Muccino, all of them perfect in their respective roles. This movie is recommended for those viewers that want to see a realistic, full of sentiments and never corny dramatic tale. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "No Limite das Emoções" ("In the Limit of the Emotions")

I am not a big fan of Muccino, and this movie didn't change my opinion. What I don't like is the ambiance and the social setting of his movies -it is too often the same Roman middle class, kind of leftist, ordinary people and the same Roman settings that probably reflect his life, family and friends, it looks like Muccino can not direct a movie with different stories, people and situations. This one is full of stereotypes and quite predictable - it is still a nice movie, with some good acting and dialogues, but there is nothing really new. Laura Morante and Gabriele Lavia are good, and when they are on screen together the movie is worth watching. The other actors are OK, but nothing really memorable. The happy (?) ending is definitely meaningless

Yesterday I saw this excellent movie, and it is still lingering in my brain and my soul.

I merely liked, not loved, Gabriele Muccino's smash Italian hit L'Ultimo Bacio when I saw it, since its depiction of thirtysomething doubts and fears left a sort of slightly fake aftertaste in my mouth. Plus, it waned out of my mind in a couple of hours, even though I had enjoyed while I was in the theatre.

Ricordati Di Me is a very, very different deal. It's a delicate, multi-faceted, true and touching punch in your stomach.

Well written and well played - especially by the extremely skillful and absolutely charming Fabrizio Bentivoglio, who's one of Italy's most gifted thesps as well as the longtime boyfriend of Rain Man's Valeria Golino (here you see him pouring his heart out onscreen with painful, searing directness) - the movie brings you into the home of a dysfunctional Italian family not dissimilar from so many dysfunctional Italian families.

Meet them: there is the melancholic, romantic, slightly frustrated husband Carlo (played by Bentivoglio), who's an obscure white-collar worker who once wanted to be a writer and keeps a sensitivity that leaves him totally exposed to raw emotions and to the eventual unfair blow of fate, all of this while keeping as well a still-unfinished novel in one of his drawers; then there is his VERY frustrated teacher wife (played by the ever-classy Laura Morante), who once wanted to be a stage actress. They've got two teenage kids, one of them a vain and egotistical 18-year-old daughter, keen on only one thing, i.e. becoming a TV starlet (played by stunning newcomer Nicoletta Romanoff), and the other one a vaguely leftish, pot-smoking daydreamer senior high schooler son (played by the director's brother).

Nothing new or revolutionary here, be sure of that, but the whole tale elaborated by Gabriele Muccino about the emotional disintegration of this apparently average family is narrated with passion and participation, both by its writer-director and by the actors.

The foursome meet enormous difficulties in communicating with each other - not only the parents with their children do, but also each of them with any other one, and egotism and indifference run rampant, especially in the veins of Valentina, the young daughter, who's a truly upsetting spectacle to watch, what with her relentless pursuing of a tinsel world, a world made of garish make-up, TV studios and squalid sex relationships with one or the other TV beefcake idol, since this girl, while still looking very innocent on the outside, would do anything to be cast in some cheesy TV show as one of the decorative babes who strut and grind in the background.

So, when you see Carlo, the husband, falling again - after many years - for married and unsatisfied mother of two Alessia (the ever-stunning Monica Bellucci, here way more expressive and intense than usual), an old flame of his youth, you just cannot think, not even for a second, of him as a middle-aged philanderer, or of Alessia as your typical homewrecker. The rekindling of their love is something so pure, so tender, so NEEDED by both these characters, that you can't help rooting for them - and be heartbroken when things just become spinning in a totally unpredicted direction, which I don't want to spoil for you.

I also truly appreciated the open ending, which leaves the audience enough room to imagine whatever they like for the future life of these characters, who've just been, anyway, through a journey able to break - once and for all - the walls of hypochrisy that previously surrounded them.

Go and see this movie, you won't regret it.