sn-4

I saw Expired. It's a fine film. Writer and director, Cecilia Miniucchi, did a superb job, the acting was great. What strikes me, though, is the film's uncanny resemblance to Federico Fellini's La Strada (The Road) starring Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina (Fellini's wife), Richard Basehart. Miniucchi said that she purposely cast Samantha Morton as the lead. I think she did so because Morton resembles Giulietta Masina. She has the same big sad eyes and innocent face. Jason Patric is the rugged emotionally crude Anthony Quinn.

In La Strada, Quinn buys Mesina from her family and takes her away in his THREE WHEEL Motorcyle caravan to help him with his little strong man road show. Mesina must beat a drum and proclaim, "Zampano is here," in each small town.

In Expired, Jason Patric, takes Claire on the road (to Pomona) in a THREE WHEEL traffic cop's vehicle.

There are a number of similar scenes throughout Expired. But in the end, Patric, like Quinn, is too crude to earn Morton's love. In La Strada, Quinn abandons Mesina, only to discover her spirit in a seaside town. The confrontation undoes him and the end of the film shows him weeping on his knees next to the sea.

I saw this movie as a double feature with Black Orpheus in San Francisco in 1963. Anthony Perkins and Melina Mercouri provide brilliant performances. Perkins is excellent as a young sensitive, melancholy, neurotic who has a fatal relationship with an older very wealthy married Mercouri. She buys him a grey Italian sports car and begins a love affair with him. The double whammy effect of Black Orpheus' tragic love story on top of the potently impossible love story in Phaedra had me reeling for days. Wish it was available on video.