Cosa voglio di più

Once the Italians gave up on realism in film they were stuck with movies by such dullards as Antonioni, the bored doings of the rich and fashionable Italians. This movie is not about rich and fashionable Italians but it is still boring. Sexual attraction, can you believe it?, causes problems for all involved and the principal characters have to decide how far they will go in self gratification which also involves harming many other people. Here the ending could go any number of ways and the way it finally goes is certainly believable but also banal. I cannot imagine two more boring hours with some very unappealing Milanesi, not one is really attractive, male or female. Perhaps this is the new realism; give me the old!

COME UNDONE ('Cosa voglio di più', the Italian title means 'What More Do I Want') is a very slight film by the well respected director Silvio Soldini ('Bread and Tulips', 'Days and Clouds', etc), a story that seems to get mired in its own passion, unable to transmit a story line that will keep the audience's attention. Perhaps this is due to the 'too many cooks spoil the broth' concept: in addition to Soldini the story and screenplay were nursed by Doriana Leondeff, and Angelo Carbone. The cast is a strong one but the actors are just not given much to develop, leaving the audience with the repeated question 'what if...?'

Anna (Alba Rohrwacher) is an accountant for an important insurance firm and lives with her longterm lover Alessio (Giuseppe Battiston) - a man who longs fro a stable longterm relationship with children, a home, etc. Anna, feeling as though the fire has fizzled in that relationship and takes up with co-worker Domenico (Pierfrancesco Favino) and the two begin a passionate affair. Now it is Anna who is considering a longterm relationship but is thwarted by the fact that Domenico is married to Miriam (Teresa Saponangelo) and has children and doesn't want to leave his wife, instead preferring passionate occasional intervals with Anna in tacky motels. It becomes a struggle of human nature - which is preferable, a stable home life or intermittent moments of passion?

The actors give this film their all and the encounters between Anna and Domenico are incredibly sensuous. The problem lies with the story's lack of resolution or even momentum: it gets stuck in the process of offering a solution for the lovers. It is simply not up to the same standards as Soldini's other works - but those are fairly high standards to reach. Given the film's few flaws it is still a beautiful visual experience.

Grady Harp

I thought that this movie did a good job of exploring the mindset of a frustrated and confused woman. It also toughed base on a man who thought only of himself and was too weak to let his wife know the truth as to his direction concerning their marriage and two children.

I noted various red flags in his character that Anna failed to see until the very end. Including guilt trips, manipulative control freak behavior and stalking with physical abuse.

But their are people out here in the world who for reasons known only to themselves who will forever fall victim to these tactics. As evident with Anna and how she devolved into her need for attention that she thought she wasn't receiving at home.

As for the ending of this movie, personally I would have opted for Anna to reach home with the locks changed and her husband growing a pair to let her know that he was not to be played a fool and not to take his kindness as a weakness.

Just my takw on the subject.

... Cone Undone (Cosa voglio di più) really is one of the better films in the wife/partner-infidelity-genre... all is good.. script-casting-acting-production.values, all of it... unsatisfied-unhappy in her bland relationship, she quickly gets involved with a married man that has two small children... he just-wants a mistress (and his family), she's looking for a different-exciting-lustful-relationship

... story moves along more or less logically, sex scenes seeming real and intensely-passionate, chemistry between actors exceptionally-good.. blowing up a relationship you're not completely happy in doesn't appear to come at a very high price for her.. it's what she wants-desires

... if the movie were to continue on, how would you want it to go.. do they remain clandestinely-together.. does she find another lover that she can have a life with (more than just couple hours a week)... or does she stay with her live-in-partner without seeking outside-affairs... what's good about the work is that each of these scenarios seem realistically-plausible... real ending's in viewer's mind.

Cosa voglio di più, English title 'Come Undone', is essentially the story of an affair. It provides little context or psychological examination of its characters, makes no moral judgement and offers little in the way of justification for their actions. The Italian title (translated literally as 'What more do I want') gives more emphasis to the idea of the film literally being about just wanting something more.

There doesn't seem to be any particularly deep want in Anna. Her sister might have just had a baby, but she doesn't really seem to be ready to have one with husband/boyfriend, Alessio. The relationship between them is easy-going and stable, even if there is no real passion there. He's a handyman, watches the pennies carefully; she works in administration for an insurance company. If their love life is unexciting, there's no conflict there either, certainly nothing that suggests that she's ready for an affair.

There's no doubt however that she is interested in Domenico/Mimmo, a cater who turns up for one of their work functions. Anna suggests coffee, they finally manage a meeting, and eventually end up at a motel for sex. It soon becomes a regular affair, but finding the time to be together is increasingly difficult. Mimmo has a wife and two children and has to steal an hour or two while he is supposed to be at the pool swimming. Anna, plays the old working late at the office line. There's only so long before suspicions are aroused in their partners, but Anna is impatient.

All Cosa voglio di più seems to be saying is that we all need a little bit of excitement outside the mundane practicalities of life. For all the passions that are raised, it's curiously detached, lacking the more gentle charm of a similar theme in Soldini's Bread and Tulips. For most films it would be the passionate affair and the exploration of deep emotional needs that would be the focus of the story, but Soldini intentionally seems to give more attention to the little banalities that have to be taken into consideration, taking time over Anna looking through brands of facewipes while she takes a call from Mimmo, or Mimmo mentally balancing the cost of paying for a motel room against the urgent needs of his children. It's refreshingly more honest about the realities of affairs, but that perhaps doesn't make for the most exciting drama.