La Riffa

La riffa is a captivating Italian drama that blends sensuality with a bittersweet look at human motives. The story revolves around a widow who, after her husband's death, organizes a raffle with an unusual prize - herself - to secure a better future. The film balances emotional depth with moments of light humor, while exploring themes of desperation, independence, and social judgment. Its layered characters and engaging plot make it a memorable watch.

I'm writing something as I noticed very bad reviews from people who, in my thought, are not able to understand the Italian language.

This movie doesn't want to be funny, a film "commedia" doesn't mean laughing, gags and so on, that's a film "comico", commedia means happy ending, something light, not much to think of.

It's not an Oscar movie and it doesn't have any ambition about winning something, it's just to spend some time without thinking and in the end, of course you won't remember much about.

It's simple, but I can understand that is difficult to appreciate it reading the subtitles, unfortunately it doesn't work like that as I was watching the movie listening to in Italian language and at the same time I was reading the subtitles in English, it doesn't work at all, at least, not in this case. Acting was more than acceptable with some forgivable flaws.

I give 6.5 stars.

I wanted to give this movie a chance but unfortunately I shouldn't. I find hard to think of a nice thing to say about it. The plot is not just weak,but impossible to take seriously,leading to many cringe worthy moments. The acting is extremely bad from pretty much everyone. Also, the directing was poor making the whole result even worse. However,I must admit that Monica Bellucci is gorgeous in almost every scene but that's the only good thing about the whole movie. Of course,that's not enough to make it an even bearable experience,as during the film I was really bored and I was tempted to turn it off. In my opinion, you won't miss anything if you don't watch that awful movie.

I believe this is a good "old-fashioned" script that would work in the late 60's with a stronger director.

But early 90's Italy is too distracting when compared to the more colorful dream-like world of Belle de Jour, a timeless classic. Although I love the little boxy European cars featured.

Another distraction is the film's pacing. You go from scene to scene at an almost comically breakneck speed. You won't be easily bored but the lack of breathing room makes most of the drama to look ridiculous.

Belucci is just jaw-dropping gorgeous and gives a good performance. She is betrayed by the frenetic pace that quite weakens her character.

Not a bad movie, could be a lot better.

My wife and I enjoyed watching this film. It held our interest. kinda cute, kinda funny, bout what you would expect from a foreign film.