Un giorno perfetto

The title, clearly ironic and provocative, introduces the plot of the day of Emma (Isabella Ferrari), a single mother of two children. The film is divisive because it tackles a complicated topic directly. There are scenes in which the film becomes a psychological introspection and the observer finds himself immersed in the deviant minds of the characters. The film gets where it wants to go. The direction of the film is easily understood from the first minutes, despite this, the viewer hopes all the time that the drama will not arrive. Instead he arrives and does it in the cruelest way, without leaving the slightest discount. Isabella Ferrari's performance is exceptional, she constantly seems lost in the plot as if she isn't entirely aware of what's happening. Ozpetek goes hard and direct in this film. It is a film of condemnation, incredibly timely, of protest against the chauvinist society and servant of power.

There are a few films that focus on a downwards slide to a final situation (an example would be Requiem for a Dream). A Perfact Day studies a downward slide while styled in the modern way, with character stories cleverly knotted together.

I picked this film more or less at random in the London Film Festival. And the first question to the director was "what does this add to the debate?" I'm not sure a film has to contribute anything for a given debate, but I understand the question.

As a study in emotion, this film does work. But it doesn't reach out anywhere else. There is little that is fully original, and so one is left with a slice of life for an Italian family, some political implications and a mysterious woman.

The film is a disaster - appalling acting, bad editing, inadequate background music, bad cinematography. Irrelevant scenes continuously appear since the very beginning of the film. The actors and actresses in the film fail to show any expression on their faces and let alone deliver any emotions. Those handsome faces accompanying with intolerably appalling acting make the audience wonder whether Italian talents have all been replaced with superficial snobs. It is hard to see how different figures in the film are linked - the existence of the teacher is simply unnecessary. It would be a much more consistent and convincing piece had the director focused on the main storyline. The film is intolerably awful - so much so that it is worse than any TV soap operas. Its nomination for the Venice Film Festival is definitely a joke. Given the quality of F. Ozpetek's work for the past three years, I am certainly not going to see any films from him in the future. What a catastrophe!

Ferzan Ozpetek is Artist. Amazing film. I liked the story

Melania Mazzucco has stated the title of her novel A Perfect Day is a deliberate reference to Lou Reed's famous song, which moviegoers might remember from the overdose scene in Trainspotting. Given such a cinematic precedent, maybe it's an indication of the state of mind one should be experiencing in order to enjoy Ferzan Ozpetek's insipid adaptation of Mazzucco's book.

As the title suggests, the story spans 24 hours, in an unidentified neighborhood in Rome. This is where Emma Buonocore (Isabella Ferrari) lives with her two children, and it's also the place where her ex husband Antonio (Valerio Mastandrea) comes every night to spy on her, peeping tom-style. Emma has a hard time raising the kids on her own, and on that particular day her universe falls apart when she loses her part-time job and Antonio, mad with jealousy (ironic, since his last name means "good heart"), goes to extreme lengths to convince her they should get back together.

Saying anything else about the plot isn't necessary because a) the outcome is ridiculously predictable, and b) there isn't really much of a plot to discuss in the first place. A Perfect Day looks less like a movie than it does a mediocre episode of a TV series, complete with basic storytelling, pointless "guest appearances" (Angela Finocchiaro, who pops up in three scenes for almost no reason at all) and god-awful characterizations. In what sane world does a six-year old talk like a middle-aged French philosopher?

Such blandness (and that's the most polite word I could think of) is a bit of a surprise coming from Ozpetek, who used to make carefully crafted character studies (not counting the misstep that was Sacred Heart). One of his merits has always been getting flesh-and-blood performances from his actors, whereas this time no one gets even close to anything vaguely resembling proper acting. Ferrari and Mastandrea try their best, but they look like little more than caricatures of the much more intense double act of Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider in Last Tango in Paris (a comparison that is practically dictated by a squalid scene of attempted rape and Mastandrea's laughable comments about sodomy). Everyone else is utterly lifeless from start to finish, even respected actresses like Stefania Sandrelli and Monica Guerritore (whose role was changed from the book because the original version, a gay male teacher, was deemed "too clichéd" for an Ozpetek film). The only bit of the movie that can be described as mildly enjoyable is when the children watch the Italian version of March of the Penguins, narrated by Fiorello: some quality dialogue at last!

Okay, maybe that was too harsh: there is also a splendid tracking shot that opens the film and was meant to foreshadow the sombre atmosphere of the story. Sadly, that didn't work out as planned, and so we are left with nothing but (pardon the pun) a perfect failure.