Tommaso

This movie felt like life. Everything's so natural and yet so complicated, even delirious, painful. I loved the sensuality of the shooting, the music is magnificent. Dafoe acting is magnetic, you forget that you're watching a movie. There are some brilliant moments, naturalistic parts, like when he yell at the drunk or when he's about to sleep with the blond woman he met at the AA. And ultimately it allowed me to visit Rome again, it brought me beautiful and painful memories.

Easy on the eyes, heavy on the heart. Well worth my time, this story continues to give well after viewing and brings up interesting questions in oneself.

"Tommaso" is far from being one of Abel Ferrara's best films, but thankfully the seasoned filmmaker casted one of the industry's best character actors to keep this film alive; Willem Dafoe.

In this drama, an American living in Italy with his young wife and toddler struggles to find purpose while overcoming addiction and self doubt.

Beautifully shot but a little too slow paced and artsy, "Tommaso" tries hard to be this seminal film for filmmaker Abel Ferrara but never quite gets there. Willem Dafoe is the saviour of this film, making it a worthwhile watch. Dafoe is no stranger to Ferrara as they've worked together countless times, especially in the last five years. "Tommaso" is a troubled film but you could still understand the message the filmmaker is trying to make even if it takes some pondering afterwards.

Follow @snobmedia for more reviews!

Like another reviewer said, there is no character development,. It seems rather pretentious. What do the disjointed "metaphysical" scenes have to do with anything. Are they suppose to imply that the protaganist,is experiencing some kind of divine madness? I was not convinced.

If you dig a bit you find this is a semi-autobiographical film of the writer-director's life. In fact the young wife and young daughter are actually his real life wife and daughter.

I really looked forward to seeing this as it has Willem Dafoe in the title role as Tommaso. And he in fact does justice to the role. The problem is the movie in total is not that interesting. It contains lots of stilted language and long monologues but basically is a story of a man, an actor and writer, living in Rome and working to overcome his addictions and balance life with a much younger wife that seems to be losing interest in him.

I suspect this is the kind of movie that film students and critics love but most viewers of mainstream movies will not warm up to.

I managed to find it on the Kanopy streaming movies site via my public library's subscription.