i must have seen a different film!!

The acting in this movie is really good.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This is another triumph by the brilliant Italian director of Turkish descent, Ferzan Ozpetek, whose SACRED HEART (2005, see my review) and FACING WINDOW (2003, see my review) were such spectacular cinematic masterpieces. In this complex ensemble film, much of which is comic and intensely satirical, human intolerance is examined with a microscope. The main focus is homophobia. The film is set in the Italian town of Lecce. The father in the film, who is the most extreme homophobe imaginable, has two unmarried sons in their late twenties or early thirties, both of whom he believes to be 'normal'. In fact, both are homosexual. One is just about to come out of the closet at a family dinner when his brother, who has been fore-warned of this, leaps up and comes out of the closet instead, thus diverting the father's inevitable wrath to himself and sparing his brother. So the one who confesses is expelled from the house (never darken my door again, you are not my son) and the family business (a huge pasta factory), while the other remains, conscience-stricken, not now daring to open his mouth about his own sexual inclinations. We are expected to believe that neither brother knew the other was gay. That works well for the story, though in real life I think it most unlikely! The film is a richly-textured tale with many characters, exploring the ironies, contradictions, insensitivities and over-sensitivities of our strange species with relentless humour, laughter, and despair. Once again, that compassionate and concerned observer of human tragedies and foibles, Ozpetek, pulls it off!

Having recently seen Loose Cannons and Animal Kingdon it was great to see such strong matriarchal figures in both films. Women of a certain age giving unbelievable performances in rather different circumstances and very different moral situations. I was so impressed with the grandmother in Loose Cannons and how her personal experience of thwarted love was keenly developed in her grandchildren and her encouragement to be their own people, especially words after at her funeral spoken by her.The grandmother in Animal Kingdom had a very different situation and was trying equally hard to manage her mentally unwell children after her only 'healthy' son is gunned down.The difference was opening up the world for her family or closing down to only what you know, ie the criminal world of Melbourne in the 1980's Both tremendous films and awesome performances from all the crew in both films, but I guess my star goes to Guy Pearce as the good cop in Animal Kingdom

Italo-Turkish director Ferzan Ozpetek goes back to what he knows and does best: a"coming- out" comedy" about homosexuality and family values, full of memorable quirky characters, laugh out-loud moments mixed with bittersweet and poignant reflections. These are also the themes of one of my old favourite Ozpetek's film, the Ignorant Fairies (Le fate Ignoranti), made 10 years ago.It is all fairly watchable stuff and it sort of works as long as it's on the screen. However, any attempt of social comment or critique at any serious issue (the close mindedness of the South of Italy, and the way Italians like to appear which is more important than the way they are, among the others) quickly fades away and gets diluted in the pursuit of easy laughers and in the over-the-top, almost caricatural depictions of the characters. Of course, it is supposed be a comedy… but sadly that's all it is.The story is set in Lecce, a city in the heel of the Italian boot, in the deep south. and it focuses on the large Cantone family (so large that it took me a while to work out who was who). Tommaso, is about to come out to his parents. One night, at the dinner table, just when he's about to break the news to the family, his older brother, Antonio announces himself to everyone that he's gay. The father's refusal to accept or understand his older brother's sexuality gives him a heart attack and leaving Tommaso at the helm of the family pasta making business, whilst at the same time trying to deal with his own hidden truth (fearing that his father won't survive the news of both of his 2 sons being gay). There are a lot of other story lines, and the family is certainly large enough to offer several opportunities for sub-plots. Unfortunately most of the characters remain just superficial caricatures (the wise grandmother, the loony aunt, the apprehensive mother, the homophobic father, the girl in love with the gay man and so on…) and in the end the film falls into the same clichés the director is trying to ridicule in the film. In a way, there's nothing here we haven't seen before, (funnily enough even within Ozpetek's previous films too) but it's good to see the overshadowed-by-the-Vatican-Italy finally arriving there too.The film is handsomely filmed and the great looking, almost-perfect settings only seem to enhanced the imperfections of the family itself. The editing (and direction) both seem a bit too pleased with themselves: some scenes could have gained something by being trimmed a bit. Even the most emotional moments always seem to go on for a bit too much than it's needed (I'm thinking of the scenes around the tables, or more crucially – SPOILER COMING – the one where the grandmother decides to go for her cakes, or even the one at the beach. You get the point after a few seconds and yet both scenes go on and on and on). The same goes for the over-used music, both in terms of the actual score (which once again stresses the slapstick aspect of the film) and known songs, most of which seem rather random and a bit intrusive. Most of the acting is very good especially the woman grandmother (Ilaria Occhini) who seems to be the only one really sees what's happening within her family.In the end I am happy I saw this film, and I did enjoy it, but I'm still longing for the return of the real Commedia all'Italiana of the 50s and 60s (and to a degree the 70s too) which really provided a mirror of Italian customs and values, attacking prejudices and questioning the general thinking of elites and institutions in a much more subtle way. The sometimes dark and bleak vision of the society and the bittersweet laughers those films provoked, felt a lot less forced than they are in this film which is clearly trying to be bit more commercial. Still, we're probably heading towards the right direction.Review from: http://moviegeekblog.wordpress.com

I saw this movie at the Chicago International Film Festival, along with 18 other movies, and it was, by far, the best movie in the festival. It was the only movie I attended that was applauded by the audience at the end of the film. I see that one of the film critics commented that the film was uneven because it couldn't make up its mind whether it was a comedy or a drama. It was both and worked on both levels, which is one of the reasons I loved it. it made me laugh and it made me cry. I think the best art is often like that. Gabriel Garcia Marquez' book "100 Years of Solitude" and Joseph Heller's "Catch 22" are examples of books that are very funny and very sad, sometimes for exactly the same reasons. I hope this film will be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It deserves the recognition.