A Summer in Genoa

When I first heard about this movie I got very excited: it doesn't happen every day to have a little city like Genova featuring in an international production, and, as a resident of this very city, I felt the right to boast a slight sense of revenge against other, more celebrated, Italian cities (to put things in perspective, Genova is often overlooked by Italian medias and by the powers that be, despite having the second biggest and busiest harbour in Europe). This until I actually managed to watch the movie. Just to avoid this post to become an unmitigated rant, I have to say that the movie itself it's not half bad...but when you name your work after a city, you're at least expected to have a faint grasp on what the whole place is about. Instead we get a trite bunch of clichés about Italy: tanned guys teasing young girls while zooming along on mopeds - people here, both old and young,barely acknowledge your presence until you bump into them - ...then the same guys roaming through the city in a huge, motorcycle-mounted pack... - never seen anything like that -...and then a little bit more of the same guys goofing on the beach... It looks like the director had spent three months in Rome or Naples before he decided to have a slightly left field take on it and to choose a less renowned city as a setting for his work, maybe to appeal to the more "indie"-oriented part of the audience. Pity he didn't manage to get anything out of the place's soul: some really awful Italians B-movies from the 70s give you a fairer rendition of the city than this movie could ever dream of. Anyway, I wouldn't be so riled about that if it wasn't for the director waxing lyrical, in interviews with local newspapers, about how much he loved the city and how he succeeded in transposing its heart and soul on the screen. Again, not a bad a film, but you could have it called with any generic Mediterranean city name and nobody would notice!

I was taken by the melancholy and the beauty of the film and if this wasn't enough, Colin Firth's performance! His best since "Apartment Zero" and that is saying something. Not a single false move in a film that could very easily become a simple tearjerker. Colin as a dad who takes care of his young daughters after the tragic death of his wife is simply extraordinary. The humanity of his character, flaws and all, is immediately recognisable. The film is filled with an emotional form of suspense that makes the experience utterly unnerving at times. Genova, the city, is photographed with real gusto. The narrow "vicoli" create a sense of dislocation that underlines in the most poetic way the new roads that Colin and his daughters are, not merely finding, but forging for themselves. A delightful surprise.

Marianne (Hope Davis) dies in a car crash with her daughters in the back. The youngest Mary causes the crash. Joe (Colin Firth) goes to teach English Literature at the University in Genova, Italy and brings his daughters Mary and Kelly (Willa Holland) over for the summer. Mary is racked with guilt and Kelly falls in love with a local boy. Joe is struggling to move on with college Barbara (Catherine Keener).

The movie is dealing with some heavy issues. The problem is that these people are trying to avoid the issues. It doesn't make for great intensity. I wish Mary and Kelly have some better conversation. This is basically a foreign vacation with some dark undertones beneath it. The most compelling parts are a couple things with Mary. Kelly isn't doing anything outrageous that the audience can attribute to more than simple teenage rebellion. It's OK to have the characters avoid the subject matter but they have to go off on other tangents to get the intensity.

Colin Firth plays an English lecturer working in the United States. His wife dies in a car crash, and Firth has to look after his two daughters - one a typically sulky and vacuous teenager, the other a girl of 11 or 12 who blames herself for the car accident, and begins to imagine her mother is appearing in her bedroom and talking to her. Firth decides to teach in Genova for a year, and takes the girls with him. The teenager smokes dope (she was doing the same at her mother's funeral reception) and the younger girl continues seeing her dead mother.

Everything in this film is very low key and measured, and there's nothing in it that rebels against common sense, nothing that seems beyond the realms of ordinary human life. The description given by my cable provider called it a 'supernatural drama,' but that it isn't. When the characters begin to wander around the maze of Genoan alleys, getting lost, I feared that the film might turn into a dreadful rehash of 'Don't Look Now,' but luckily no. The teenage girl resents her father's attempt to know where she goes (and who with) every hour of the day. The younger girl is more interesting as a character, and her portrayal of grief is quite moving.

Firth is excellent here, and he acts his part by apparently doing very little. This is exactly the right way of approaching one's part in rather slight 'slice of real life' material like this. If you're expecting 'supernatural' garbage like 'In Dreams' or 'Half Light,' you'll be sadly disappointed. But if you want thoughtful and humane drama, this is for you.

Had I been in some kind of stupor when I watched this film I could easily have been forgiven for thinking I had been invited to Mr. Winterbottom's home to watch his family holiday film while on holiday in Genova. Had this been the case I would have been looking for a cat to stroke withing the first fifteen minutes. Well..that's what I normally do when I am subjected to total boredom. I would have then sipped the remains of my drink and made a polite exit.

This film is mind numbingly boring. Straight away you see a flight from Chicago to Genova via RyanAir. Since when did RyanAir fly from Chicago? Oops sponsorship! As for the film proper. Not much to say really. Shot on a cheap camera with cheap sound it centres around beach shots, shopping shots, lots and lots of alleyway shots. numerous shots of people on scooters, a car collision which looked like it had been done by retired stunt men, a few shots about candles being lit and nice cuddly family scenes. Add a little Italian into the stew and that's it.

Ignore any pretencion about sub-plots. There aren't any. There is no drama. It's a film that goes nowhere because it doesn't have a starting point. It could have been made by a group of students on their first year film course.

Next time I watch a film about Italy or based around Italy I shall make sure it has the stamp of an Italian director. Mr. Winterbottom has now entered my 'Must Avoid' list.

Truly awful. Minus 10

Now where's my cat?