johannes2000-1

What a silly, meaningless description IMDb uses for this movie: "It is the story of a boy, who leads a normal life with his wife, but full of enthusiasm and passion". While it's in fact a pretty serious psychological drama about opportunism and deceit, and about "what goes around, comes around".

Toni (a breathtakingly attractive Giuseppe Maggio) is a young, slightly naive guy, who used to do some amateur painting. By a chain of events he becomes sexually involved with the beautiful daughter of a rich family, who in her blind affection decides to promote him as an upcoming star painter. Toni lets himself go with this flattering flow, deceives his wife as well as his new lover with a more and more tangled web of lies, and ultimately gets crushed by both sides and by his own ambition.

Director Corsicato uses some unusual cinematographic means: in many scenes the camera is deliberately out of focus, or we see the main characters talk and gesticulate but don't hear them, and the score consists in several pivotal scenes of (rather bombastic) classical music. A nice touch was the fact that the paintings of Toni are never shown, leaving us guessing what their quality really was. The acting of most of the cast is excellent, not only Maggio, but also beautiful Carolina Sala as Chiara, and Sandra Ceccarelli as her impressive, intimidating mother.

I had hoped for a more definitive closure, but director Corsicato leaves it to us to construct what would or could have happened next; the last appreciative words of the renowned art-critic at least give some clue. All in all an entertaining, well acted and cinematographically interesting film.

For the most part I liked it. The premise (a scientist finds a way to match lovers on their DNA and with that becomes CEO of a billion dollar imperium) is very original, and the story that's built around it is pretty exciting, with some nice twists and turns, while dark secrets come to the surface. The acting was overall great, especially Hannah Ware stood out as the ice-cold Queen Bee Rebecca.

I did have some reservations though. There are several secondary storylines that are related to the main premise, but unfortunately they're not all that involving: the one of Mark, Hannah and Megan, as well of that of the love-life of the female detective were both a bit farfetched and became more tiresome than interesting. And the last episode disappointingly ends with many storylines still open. I guess back then (2021) they were aiming for a second season, but that obviously never came about. A bit of a pity.

Apparently I missed this movie 15 years ago, I stumbled by chance over it on my streaming channel, and was pleasantly surprised. It's not at all the usual vigilante story that you maybe gather from the synopsis, but a pretty intense and cynical drama. Main character Sean (Caleb Steinmeyer) is a traumatized high school kid who has made it, for personal reasons, his mission to attack criminals and bullies, in a rather relentless, uncompromising way. This gives the story a very harsh edge, and although you tend to root for him, it's clear that he takes things way too far, not so much on emotional impulses, but very deliberate and calculating - see for instance the very last scenes.

I also had some reservations. Some storylines dead-ended, like the bullied student that Sean tried to help; or stayed (deliberately?) unclear, like the actual facts around Sean's mother's death. And the choice that detective Teresa made at the end of the movie didn't feel in sync with her supposed professionalism. But these reservations hardly marred my appreciation.

Steinmeyer does an excellent job in this multilayered role, and I was a bit surprised to see on IMDb that after this film this young actor apparently stopped acting in movies altogether.