Tutta colpa della Fata Morgana

Nicole Grimaudo is a particularly attractive actress with sharp yet elegant facial features. And this films shows how she can successfully take on the burden when a film malfunctions on multiple fronts.

The first half hour was a total waste and could have well been edited down to less than 10 minutes. And till the late minutes of the second act, I remained unsure of whether to make it till the ending. I did, however, mostly thanks to Grimaudo's acting and the late blooming merits of the story.

The premise is that, Gabriella (Nicole Grimaudo) is a Calabrian woman willing to start up her own business along with female friends. And she has long set eyes on a particular old house on the sea for that reason. Then she learns that the place was not going to be sold, but rather be turned into an eco-something hotel of sorts by the "Northern" businessman Claudio who owns it. Hence, along with a friend, she conspires to sabotage the restoration works to spook away the crew. And to make things easy, she accepts to work for the restoration project as a decorator of sorts. For the house is known as that of the "violinist" and believed to have a hex on it, Gabriella is set to scare the workers by use of their own superstitions.

That is not a bad premise at all, and even particularly vibrant for a colorful rom-com. However, the overall feel of the movie was not set to this tone, at least not till the midst of it.

The plot required a HomeAlone-esque cinematic reality where we could see physical comedy via mechanisms and manipulations supposed to help Gabriella reach her goal. Alas, almost nothing of importance happens on that front. We don't even get to know enough about Claudio (Davide Iacopini) till he and Gabriella suddenly decide to swim, as if the two characters are shrugging off the dull lines written for them and breaking the ice out of the blue just to give a kick to the efforts of a forced romance.

I won't even mention the first two sabotage methods by Gabriella because they are incredibly lame and do not contribute to the film in any way. The third, however, is significant as she dresses up as the ghost of the violinist, whom we have by that time learned was actually the father of Claudio.

(We never understand how come and why the house stayed vacant for 30 years, given Claudio had left there with her mom at the age of 3 and the violinist father had died shortly after.)

Anyways... The second half of the film is interesting enough to make up for some of the stupidity in the opening act, and the presence of the young and talented Tecla Insolia as Maria (Gabriella's daughter) helps warm us up to the realm of that Calabrian town.

As the romance between Gabriella and Claudio gets to become something more credible, it gets crowned with a first kiss that will indirectly provoke a visit from Claudio's girl friend, a psychoanalyst from Milan.

Now, the contrast between Lombardians (North) and Calabrians (South) is there all the time to add some depth to the story on cultural and economical levels. But it kind of fails on that. (Would a construction crew really leave the site in such a cash-poor town, just because they thought the house was slighlty haunted?)

It also does not help that Grimaud is 41 and Claudio is supposed to be 33. The two lack chemistry, something that could be there all the time if the latter role was given to a more Northern-and-eager-looking actor closer in age to his love interest. There was no problem with Iacopini's acting, but he and Grimaudo just did not convince within the same frame as potential lovers.

I won't give any spoilers about the ending, but will simply say that those valuable minutes stolen by the dull opening act could have fortified the overall feeling of this movie in case they were used in later scenes.

This could have been shot and edited in a much, much better way. Still, as the decent, light Tv movie it is, has enough to attract certain profiles without raising eyebrows.