L'immensità

I think as she ages, Penélope Cruz is beginning to look more like Sophia Loren and certainly here, I thought the resemblance was quite strong at times. Likewise, the young "Adri" (Luana Giuliani) looks a bit like Cruz too - who plays her mother "Clara". The story is set in a Roman 1970s of floral patterns and bell-bottomed trousers, post-war development and centres around the young daughter who really wants to be a boy. This isn't an in-your-face drama about sexuality, it's more nuanced than that and whilst the underlying frustrations of "Adri/Andrew" serves as a spine for the film, there is also a relationship between husband and wife, a broader familial one and the hint of a slightly undercooked romance between "Adri" and her new, less privileged, friend "Sara" (Penélope Nieto Conti). It's that last relationship that rather sums us the pretty bitty narrative here. We see snippets of their lives, but they are not necessarily that well connected to the theme. It's episodic without enough explanation. The marriage is failing, yes. Why? Well that we don't really know. The father/husband "Felice" (Vincenzo Amato) role is left hanging all to often, we have no idea what makes him tick nor, really, do we get to grips with what is troubling the loving and caring "Clara". Their son "Gino" (Patrizio Francioni) has a rather curious habit of leaving little deposits on the carpet and, indeed, it's really only the young "Diana" (María Chiara Goretti) who brings any sanity to this family arrangement. There is humour here, permitting us to take a breather from the frequently over-intense writing and there are a few musical numbers that showcase both Cruz and Giuliani as talented and skilful at their craft. It's worth a watch, and it looks stylish and classy, but I'm afraid I found it all just a bit too messy and superficial.

How frustrating it can be when you watch a movie that has a lot of tremendous moments but doesn't hang together well as a complete whole. Such is the case with this latest offering from writer-director Emanuele Crialese, which tells the story of a family in the midst of multiple domestic crises. Set in Rome in the 1970s, the picture follows the life of Clara (Penélope Cruz), the depressed wife and mother of three who's married to an abusive, philandering, often-disconnected husband (Vincenzo Amato), and her attempts to cope with her circumstances. Clara loves her children dearly, but the young ones all have challenges of their own, especially her eldest, Adriana (Luana Giuliani), a teen who's struggling with gender identity issues. Clara and Adriana seek various forms of escape, as depicted in several fantasy sequences and regular forms of play (all captured with a terrific sense of humor), but are those diversions enough to take away their heartache? The film also seeks to address a number of Italian cultural matters, such as the privileged role of men and the expected subservient place of women, dynamics that unfold in the principal narrative as well as in ancillary story threads. Sadly, while these are all noteworthy elements of the story, there's a little too much going on for the picture to hold everything together cohesively, especially when crammed into is relatively brief 1:37:00 runtime. Also, a number of the story's aspects are presented a little too vaguely for my taste, leaving them open more to ambiguous, unfocused interpretation than bona fide nuance. To its credit, however, when the sequences work, they do so quite effectively, in large part thanks to the fine performances of Giuliani and, particularly, Cruz, whose ravishing elegance recalls a young Sophia Loren. It's unfortunate that this offering isn't better fleshed out; it could have stood to either have some elements cut out completely or to expand and elaborate on the overall narrative. As it stands now, however, this release feels choppy, underdeveloped and incomplete, despite the strength of those aforementioned moments. Those are the sequences that make this offering work; it's just a shame that there weren't more of them and that they were better tied together.

The movie projects a background history; that of an unhappy middle class family due to the careless and extremely restrictive character of the father. We see the older daughter, Adriana's rebellious attitude towards her father's loveless dominance and inability to care for his wife or children. When the movie starts, Adriana has already rejected her female, fragile and womanizing features. Adriana rejects everything that her mother is, but also looks after her since her father humiliates Clara, her mother . Gino also rebels and manifests his unhappiness by defecating around the house. The mother is evidently distraught and looking for ways to feel happy in a bland world which flows between drinking, smoking and her time with her children. A beautiful photography, a good script and very good acting of Penelope Cruz. Very realistic and plausible, beautiful in its own drama.

I love art house Italian films from the 1970s so I wanted to see L'immensita but I found myself underwhelmed. The film is pretty, but not beautiful. It's artful but not terribly interesting. The musical moments were lovely but did not uplift a claustrophobic tale about a 12 year old trans boy obsessed with his unhappy mother. The emphasis here is on the experience of late childhood and puberty, the suffering of a trans adolescent resisting their given gender role in traditional society, and there's little escape into the wider world of Rome in the 1970s beyond a tween's impression taken from movies and television.

The movie is mostly sad and boring, and while I sympathize with the director I guess I am just not the target audience here. Also, I felt that the mother's supposed mental illness was too understated, too subtle. I didn't get that she was crazy, just miserable and looking for joy where she could find it with her kids, as she certainly couldn't have it with her husband.

It's a family drama with a transgender subplot set in 1970 in Rome, Italy. It follows a summer in the life of a dysfunctional family.

Clara (Penélope Cruz) is the mother of three children. She is devoted to her children but has a rocky relationship with her philandering and abusive husband, Felice (Vincenzo Amato). Their oldest child, Adriana/Adri/Andrew (Luana Giuliani), is 12 years old, born as a girl but identifies as a boy. Gino (Patrizio Francioni) is a younger brother, and Diana (Maria Chiara Goretti) is perhaps a six-year-old girl.

Adri develops a summer friendship with a Romany girl named Sara (Penélope Nieto Conti), during which they identifies as Andrew. Their parents and extended family resist Adri's identification, though Clara is sympathetic. Eventually, the family encounters two crises, and Adri tries to escape through fantasy. "L'immensità" ends inconclusively.

The director came out as transgender with the release of this film. "L'immensità" tends to wander a bit but reflects a family in crisis very well. Cruz is probably too attractive for her role and tends to overshadow Luana Giuliani, who deserves great credit for a demanding and complex role.