Maccheroni

Tonight I had much to study and very little feeling for my books. I watched this film instead: I vaguely remembered it had a poor IMDb rating, but I decided to give it a chance anyway. I'm so glad I did! I found out a delightful bitter-sweet comedy, with some good laughs and a few touching moments as well. To be true the plot about the depressed American businessman who comes to Italy and discovers the enjoyment of life has been heard before and could seem sometimes predictable, but has its great moments; the score is rather charming too. Marcello and Jack are a magnificent paring. This film is vastly and wrongfully underrated. I can't believe it's only rated 6.1: it would deserve much more. I highly recommend it to anybody loves truly great artists like Lemmon and Mastroianni.

This film came and went too quickly in 1985, but I was fortunate enough to see it in a movie theater at the time, and later to get the video of it. Jack Lemmon is an American business executive on a business trip to Naples (where he was stationed in World War II). He is a crabby, middle aged man, who has financial success but has lost a sense of enjoyment in life. Reenter his old friend Marcello Mastroianni, whose sister was once dating Lemmon. Lemmon is at first suspicious and standoffish (he barely recalls Mastroianni) but his curiosity makes him take up Mastroianni again. The latter is a clerk in a bank, but he is a part-time actor and dramatist, and the center of a large family group. He also has had an odd habit of dying and being resurrected again, since childhood. Lemmon gradually finds his humanity being restored, and finding he wants to be re-involved with his old friend's family. The conclusion veers to tragedy, but the conclusion is very sweet. I recommend this film strongly, to people who wish to believe.

Macaroni follows the renewal of friendship bewtween two men who have not seen each other since WWII. The only not-so-good part of the movie is that it is very predictable. It is never too hard to guess what will happen next. Some may enjoy these types of film however I would rather be challenged!

The wonderful part of this film is the pairing of Lemmon and Mastroianni. They are wonderful together. I have not laughed this hard watching a movie in a long time. Trust me, you will be rolling on the floor. But it is not all fun and games, there is a serious message. Watch it and find out!

I lived in Naples at the time and those Americans who did loved this movie. There were many inside jokes that you could only know about if living or have lived in Italy. However, my sister saw it having never been in Naples and thought it was both touching and Naples. The people and and the city is really like it. Jack Lemmon doesn't play his typical character but plays straight man to the city and the people of Naples and seeing his reaction to this strange world of people and back alleys is hilarious. The movie reminds me a little of an Neopolitan version of the movie Cannery Row but much more funnier. Most Americans hate Naples until after a few months living there an then love it. The movie captures that spirit. Well worth seeing especially if you ever want to visit bella Napoli. I agree with the previous comment that the movie came and went all too fast...a sleeper.

Macaroni casts Jack Lemmon as an American businessman on a trip to Naples, his first since World War II when he traveled on a group rate and probably landed at Salerno. The Neapolitan women were most grateful to the Americans for liberation, most grateful indeed.

Over 40 years go by and Lemmon now a successful businessman is on business in Naples and he's greeted in his hotel room by an old friend he doesn't recognize. Marcello Mastroianni is at first dismissed when Lemmon doesn't recognize him, but the picture he leaves of Lemmon and his sister does the trick.

With some trepidation Lemmon seeks out Mastroianni's family and finds the sister now a matronly grandmother. Naturally he was expecting some unknown offspring, but her's can all be attributed to the husband she later married.

Mastroianni is a dreamer and a dramatist of sorts. He's involved with what we would in America call a stock company as he writes and directs and stars in little dramas of his own. In one we see him as an Italian version of Snidely Whiplash. And he's created a whole drama around Lemmon as he wrote letters in Lemmon's name recounting a life that some pulp fiction hero would have envied. You can imagine Lemmon's reaction when he learns of his other life.

Pretty soon Lemmon is sucked into the family and as things aren't going well in his personal life in America, he's soon involved with the whole family. The end however is bitter sweet.

Macaroni is essentially a two person film with no real flushing out of any of the other characters played by actors and actresses unknown to American audiences. Lemmon and Mastroianni are good together though nothing like Lemmon and Matthau, but who was?

It's an easy to take film goes better with a glass of red wine.