I love this movie so much

Simply Perfect

Memorable, crazy movie

How sad is this?

An Oscar BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM nominee, 9 times David di Donatello Awards winner, an exceptional case of home run. Silvio Soldini's overwhelmingly heartfelt crowd-pleaser is about an Italian woman's awakening realisation of the prospect that she might reap a new romance and start a new life in her middle-age, plus, it is in Venice!Rosalba (Maglietta) is an average middle-class housewife from Pescara, only she is all fingers and thumbs in some measure, during a group trip with her family, her clumsiness incidentally results in her being left alone in a highway café, clearly her husband Mimmo (Catania) and their two sons take no notice of her absence in the first place. Later after being scolded by an exasperated Mimmo and commanded to wait in situ for the bus to return and pick her up, a disgruntled Rosalba decides to hitchhike back to home instead of continuing the trip, and en route to Pescara, realising that she has never been to Venice, she makes an impulsive decision to visit Venice, which will change her life forever, and for the better!A planned overnight stay expectedly extends into a prolonged sojourn, Rosalba finds a job as a helper for the local florist Fermo (Andreasi), and camps out in the apartment of a recluse Fernando (Ganz), an Icelandic waiter she meets in the restaurant. Unbeknown to her, a reticent Fernando is actually planning a suicide when Rosalba effects an entrance into his miserable life, later it will reveal that he is taking care of his grandson and the latter's mother Adele (Lepore), whom his son deserted long time ago.While Rosalba luxuriates in her adventure in Venice, at home, a fuming Mimmo is desperate to know her whereabouts (although their two adolescent sons are quite easy with their mother's unusual vacation), he hires an inept and overweight plumber Costantino (Battiston) who is applying for a job in his company, as a private detective to look for Rosalba in Venice. Little had he known, unexpected fondness will be God's divine design, spontaneously germinate between Costantino and Grazia (Massironi), a masseuse living next door to Fernando and Rosalba's new best friend, who is so down on her luck in relationships and also in critical need of a plumber in her life.Of course, a nagging guilty conscience of shirking from her duty both as a wife and a mother has been duly interrupts Rosalba's otherwise perfect holiday in Venice by the mechanics of her own imaginations, but Soldini renders the intrusions with such a light and comedic touch, Rosalba will practically become accustomed to it in no time. As plain as day, Mimmo is not a qualified husband for her, he can no longer appreciate her earthy beauty and their communication has been shut down for too long. So what the exotic Fernando brings to her life is something more wholesome, more sincere, and vice versa, she picks up her childhood hobby, the accordion, and he brings her to dancehall, together, they celebrate his grandson's birthday in the Floating City, what's more one can hanker for? Finally, albeit a predictable due date of her getaway, a new page of her life has already been turned, at any rate, a lady must have a little patience to wait for her Prince Charming to take his action.Unbridled from the traditional view of family and responsibility, BREAD AND TULIPS is an encouraging but fantasised fable can hit hard to those who are bogged down in their middle-life crises, and aspiring to breathe some fresh air, even just for two hours, on top of that, it doesn't reek of cheesiness and schmaltz when you replay it in mind after the show, mostly by virtue of a genial Licia Maglietta in her unsentimental and non-dramatic representation of a character could easily go overboard with all the quixotic bells and whistles around her.

Bread and Tulips (2000)A feel good movie that is also a good movie. It's beyond just warm and colorful, with scenes of Venice night and day, and beyond just triumphant, with true love winning in more ways than one. It is most of all populated with great characters. Italian leading lady Licia Maglietta is a wonder of naturalistic acting. She is sympathetic of course, but not a cliché. She plays a housewife on a diversion away from her family, and she looks and acts like a housewife. As strong as she is, and as independent, she is also devoted to her family. The fact she left them at all is perfectly unfolded as an accident that she turns into an opportunity, all by intuition. The man she meets is no paradigm of handsome or charming, in fact he's just the opposite. But he is so inherently good, a really decent human being, she comes to like him, and look out for him. Played by Swiss actor Bruno Ganz, he matches Maglietta's believable ease and imperfect, quiet intensity. The rest of the cast is truly supportive, and tips just slightly (or more than slightly in one case) into caricature, to reminds us, I suppose, that this is a movie, a fantasy, a comedy in many ways.But it's also a deeply serious and moving love story between two middle-aged people who are ready for renewal.I have a feeling many people, especially people with families or those conservative at heart, will find the basic premise of a woman leaving her family in a glib and almost carefree way and not going back for a long time to be shameful or even sinful. Her kids are normal distracted teenagers who like her when they notice her, her husband is a hardworking and loud businessman who doesn't beat her, her home is her own and comfortable. In other words, she has a really normal life, a good one by most measures. Does everyone have the right to up and leave a working family relationship because they feel a bit restless? Is this movie a worship of selfishness?Or is it a reminder that life is short and you have to get to what really matters, and be with people who are truly wonderful and good, no matter what?I can't think of a more joyous way to ask the question.

What I appreciated most in Bread And Tulips (English title), is the subtlety of the humor.There are some truly wonderful comedic small touches here, such as when the plumbing 'detective' is confronted at gunpoint by Ganz's very linguistically eloquent character, and fails to understand him. There are some very funny lines. But it's not a gutbuster. It's more subtle than that.A most human drama. Characters are drawn from real life, given just enough idiosyncrasy to make them interesting, not abstractions. I thought it was as gender fair as any movie I've seen : both the women and men are equally shown as flawed, ignorant, sinister, mean, or noble and generous without making the case for one sex being preponderantly more prone to such failings or graces than the other gender. It is directed with a nurturing gentleness reflective of a female director . . .although the director is a man and the co-writer a woman. The story's protagonist is a woman whose heart has been relegated to second-class by all the self-serving males who surround her. . . her intimacy sacrificed. A woman can understand another woman in this conflict more naturally than men usually can which makes the director's accomplishment all the more remarkable.If you're up for a romantic movie comedically driven but full of pathos, look no further. I recommend this movie heartily.Wish there were more movies this well done. . . .

"Bread and Tulips (Pane e tulipani)" is a delightful movie for grown-ups.Even though I missed the first minute of the opening due to subway delays, as I stumbled through a packed theater of hard-of-hearing senior citizens who go to foreign movies to read the subtitles and re-tell the plot turns loudly to each other) I could sure relate to it: middle-aged mom on vacation with Grouchy Dad and sarcastic teen boys, having to carry around all the emergency supplies and tourist tchotchkas, getting ignored by one and all.From there it turns into a wonderful screwball laugh out loud comedy of quirky characters and unexpected life stories, some revealed suddenly, some unpeeled slowly, as chance encounters lead to surprising changes, though I couldn't move to clear my view so big heads made me miss key parts of some complicated explanations.While the Earth Mother is captivating, the unfair flaw is the unsympathetic husband to justify the fantasy ending, though I think his character may reflect some conventions of Italian comedy that don't quite translate well here.At the long line in the ladies room afterwards, a fluent Italian speaker praised the subtitle translations and pointed out that the family's hometown is very much not a tourist destination, so is rarely seen in films, contrasted nicely with the scenes in Venice.(originally written 7/28/2001)