La prima cosa bella

I recently saw this at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. This film picked up three prestigious Donatello Awards (Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Screenplay) in Italy and is that country's official submission to the 83rd Academy Awards Best Foreign Film category. The story begins in the 1971 when Anna (Michella Ramazzotti), the beautiful wife of Mario (Sergio Albelli) wins a local Mrs. beauty pageant. The jealous Mario eventually throws out Anna and their two children and so begins their journey throughout this film that leads to the present day where the older Anna (Stefania Sandrelli) is dying and her daughter Valeria (Claudia Pandolfi) coaxes her brother Bruno (Valerio Mastanrea), now a professor who has a drug problem and has become estranged from his mother and sister, to pay his last respects while Anna is still alive. Told in a series of flashbacks to the past interwoven very smartly with the present this is a clever film and story with lots of wit and charm and a great cast. Also stars Fabriza Sacchi as Sandra, Anna's estranged sister. Anna stole Sandra's boyfriend Mario and when Mario and Anna split he returned to Sandra. There are lots of interesting subplots and a great supporting cast including the young actors who play Bruno and Valeria in childhood and as teenagers. Paolo Virzi directs this film and his real-life wife Ramazzotti in a family friendly manner where violence and sex are implied and not gratuitous. Nicely shot by veteran cameraman Nicola Pecorini in his feature film debut as a cinematographer. Film veterans Production Designer Tonino Zera, Set Decorator Donato Tieppo and Costume Designer Gabriella Pescucci have a clever collective eye for detail in recreating the flashback scenes of the 1970's and blend them seamlessly with the look of present day with the help of Film Editor Simone Manetti. Writer/Director Virzi wrote the original story for film with the intention of making it seem like it was adapted from a novel help of co-screenwriters Francesco Bruni and Francesco Picolo. Virzi and Ramazzotti were on hand at my screening for a Q&A. I would give this an 8.5 out of 10 and recommend it.

I could not even finish to watch the entire movie. From the first moments I had the feeling of something already seen so many other times: the usual boring italian comedy where I know how the movie goes and which image of Italy wants to give, as if time had never passed since 1950.

Paolo Virzi, the last heir of Italian comedy recounts the resentment of a child for a mother too generous, the ambitions of a great little woman in Italy in the sixties, the Italian province full of prejudices, the disease as an instrument of reconciliation. Between past and present, helped by a splendid cast including Stefania Sandrelli (muse of Pietro Germi and Bernardo Bertolucci, Ettore Scola return in a leading role with all his talent as an actress animal). Paolo Virzi signs his best movie, a film that makes you cry and laugh at the same time, a film that remains in the heart... Paolo Virzi, the last heir of Italian comedy recounts the resentment of a child for a mother too generous, the ambitions of a great little woman in Italy in the sixties, the Italian province full of prejudices, the disease as an instrument of reconciliation. Between past and present, helped by a splendid cast including Stefania Sandrelli (muse of Pietro Germi and Bernardo Bertolucci, Ettore Scola return in a leading role with all his talent as an actress animal). Paolo Virzi signs his best movie, a film that makes you cry and laugh at the same time, a film that remains in the heart...

Most people agree that the Golden Age of Italian movies started with Rosselini's "Rome-Open City" and ended about 15 years before Mastroianni's death. What's the cause of that, we can't be sure of.

This film about the drug depending teacher, who remembers his mother during the last decade of that era and how she involuntarily destroyed the lives of him and his sister. They really haven't begun yet. His mother another example of the common Italian film theme "Too beautiful for her own good".

But that theme would have been done better in the hands of the golden Italian directors and good acting really don't make that much difference here.

Told in flashbacks, this is the story of Anna, young mother of two, who in the Seventies gets thrown out by her jealous husband after winning a beauty competition for the most beautiful mother and must carve a life for herself and her children, even if she has no skills or instruction and only her attractiveness to sell.

In her own way, Anna is a good mother, but both Bruno and Valeria, her boy and girl will suffer some consequences of their unconventional upbringing.

I found the flashbacks very relatable since I am Italian and I grew up in that time frame. Therefore it felt like a nostalgic trip down memory lane.

The part in the present is less convincing and I did not like at all Mastrandrea's interpretation of the grown up Bruno. Sandrelli as the older Anna is good and her story line quite moving.

I rated the movie quite high for my own sentimental reasons, although the present day part of the history could have been done better and the plot is slightly overlong.