Il compleanno

I am somewhere between liking and disliking this movie, so I am giving it five stars. What I like is the lovely performance by Massimo Poggio as Matteo; if the rest if the movie had been on his level it would have gotten an easy eight stars. But it was as if he was working all alone in an otherwise uniformly mediocre undertaking.

The story, the dialog, the pacing and all the other performances are more like a soap opera than any other movie I can think of, with overblown emotions, preposterous developments, a lot of yelling and crying, and almost continual minor crises of one kind or another - even convenient interruptions for commercial breaks (what another reviewer brilliantly described as fadeaways).

I am a gay man, but I did not find Thyago Alves attractive at all, so the fact that Massimo Poggio made his obsession with the boy totally credible is part of his achievement. His is a stunning, subtle, restrained, and deeply moving performance. So I can recommend this movie highly for his work, but not for anything else.

If this were merely the soap opera which its form indicates, it would be overly extended and boring at 104 minutes. The fact that its principal point is making a tragedy of someone coming to terms with his sexuality, a first same-sex love scene causing a death, is unforgivably homophobic. This plays like a 1940s warning about the dangers of same-sex attraction, not a 2009 film. Tthe 'Liebestod' (Love Death) from Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde's begins, permeates,and ends this repugnant film. Could it be any less subtle? You'd think that at least, they'd have chosen an Italian opera in an Italian film! It makes 'Death in Venice' look lighthearted, and that's a period piece. This is not. Massimo Poggio turns in a nice performance, as someone else observed, but that's it. That 'Il compleanno' earned an award in Venice is shocking, as it is mawkish and unoriginal as well as offensive. No wonder it was never reissued on Blu Ray. I am very sorry to have seen it.

Movie opens with a melodramatic opera scene and the ending of the movie finishes likewise. So over the top that the tragedy at the end seemed too contrived and unrealistic. The sex the married Italian had with the tempting young man was made to seem like the worst thing possible and the guilt trip over what accidentally happened at the end would last a lifetime. Oh come on...give me a break. Total overreaction....totally unreal drama!!! Not interesting and not sexy.

A Great Italian movie. I didn't like the ending though , but still a wonderful movie (why should all gay relationships be tarnished with guilt by writers). For some reason European films have a lower ranking than Hollywood films on IMDb even though they are sometimes of better quality. This is a great drama film.

Whats great about this movie is the way it recreates moments and precisely conveys what the characters are feeling - the bike scene with David and Matteo is superbly done with background song "zingara" - interpreted by Iva Zanicchi, which is great. The actor who plays David's character is a real hotty by the way, watch out for an intimate scene with a song by Loretta Goggi - "Maledetta Primavera" in the background. The opera style music played in the beginning and end is a bit strong I felt - reminds me of 'Death in Venice'.

The movie has a great realistic and natural style to it, everything including conversation flows smoothly and is completely engrossing. A good watch.

This is an overlong Italian soap opera about two fortyish married couples sharing a beautiful beach home for the summer; when the long-absent 18-year-old son of husband #1 shows up, husband #2 falls hard. All sorts of complications might arise, but the film just flounders around for almost two hours, until it finally ends in (you guessed it!) tragedy. (All those shots emphasizing husband #1's wedding ring were a dead giveaway that this would end in tears.) There's some nice scenery, a little eye-candy, and lots of talking and eating and strolling on the beach. This movie offers a long, slow haul to a limp, contrived finish.