That was an excellent one.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This is a film that ticks all the boxes in the genre. There's romance, mystery, laughs and sadness, atmosphere, a very good story, social comment, and great cinematography and acting. Not a wasted moment; everything is right and in the right place. Facing Windows is a pleasure to watch and then reflect on and discuss afterwards. It's always good to have entertainment that is a pleasure per se while offering some more intellectual enjoyment as well. And yet you cannot help feeling that these are ordinary people's unglamorous lives, that this could be me, or someone I know; these could be, or are, my problems too, my uncertainties, my difficult decisions. Özpetek has been a good director from the beginning, but gets better with each film.

Have you ever wondered what your life would look like to a stranger looking in? If you were able to magically remove yourself and look at your "everyday", would there be insight to be had? Many of us allow life to pass us by. We do not demand enough, we do not strive enough, we do not mold what we have to the best of what it could be. This film compels you to question yourself, to appreciate more and not take things for granted, because our todays soon become our tomorrows and we do not want to be left with any regrets and what ifs.The film is very real. I felt engaged, I felt involved, and at the end, I felt serene. This is the calibre of film that film-goers live for.

This movie would even appeal to non-drama goers with it's mysterious jumps into the past. It deals with the struggles of a young mid-class family trying to make ends and their passion meet. Along comes a stranger (an older gentlemen), with problems of his own, who forces the heroine to change her approach on life and (PERHAPS A SPOILER) to realize that the life she has been given is by no means misfortunate, perhaps just a bit unfulfilled... This elderly gentlemen, in a state of loss, comes across this couples life, not knowing who he is and where he should go to. The heroine's husband having a soft heart and not wanting to just leave him on the streets decides to bring him into their home.

I found this movie to be well made and meaningful. The acting was fine, but it was the plot that really carried the movie. Occasionally, a movie makes a connection with either a book or a previous movie which is uncanny in its similarity. When I watched Apocalypse Now, the connection was with Heart of Darkness. With Facing Windows, the movie could have been intentionally designed as a sequel to a black and white movie starring Marcello Mastriani as an intellectual homosexual in 1930's Rome. Across the alley was Sophia Loren who played the unloved wife of a fascist who was lonelyand attracted to Mastriani (without knowing his predilection). In the end, Un Giorno Speciale is of course a much more refined film, however, the elderly character in Facing Windows could have easily been based upon what fictionally could have happened to Mastriani's character after his days in fascist Rome. I would highly recommend seeing Un Giorno Speciale either before or after seeing Facing Windows.