Sorry, this movie sucks

Excellent but underrated film

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

While I am no American Beauty fan, I admit it is a smartly made movie with great performances and fine writing. It seems director Muccino loved it so much he decided to make his own version, Ricordati di Me. Of course there is a middle-class family whose members detest each other; of course they all undergo some kind of revelation and change their attitude towards life. Meek Carlo (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) meets old flame Alessia (Monica Bellucci); frustrated Giulia (Laura Morante), Carlo's wife, pursues her passion for theater and becomes romantically interested in her director (Gabriele Lavia); their daughter Valentina (Nicoletta Romanoff) sleeps her way to stardom and their son Silvio (Silvio Muccino) develops a crush for a girl. Acting is uneven. Silvio Muccino, the director's son, gives a dreadful performance, mumbling his way through. Laura Morante is odiously over-the-top; I wonder if the blame is on the director, since I have seen this kind of overacting elsewhere in his filmography and Morante is usually a competent actress. Bentivoglio is better, although if you want to see him shine watch the underrated Come Due Coccodrilli. Nicoletta Romanoff is passable, but her character is so obnoxious that every time she was on screen I wanted her to be run over by a truck. Monica Bellucci, who usually just relies on her good looks, is better than expected; veteran Gabriele Lavia is the best of the bunch as the gay director.Sadly, these characters are both unlikable and boring, a deadly combination. Now, it is possible to make good and even great movies about characters who are reprehensible or just not very sympathetic (Once Upon a Time in America, Sleuth, Ronin, The Hateful Eight...), but they need to be compelling. In Ricordati di Me the protagonists are a bunch of shallow, bored individuals, as derivative as the movie they inhabit.4/10

Soap opera enthusiasts will love this film. Each scene telegraphs what predictable nonsense will follow. The only element rising above such overwrought displays is generally apt use of camera and sound to capture an authentic flavor of life in a neurotic sort of middle-class Italian household, circa early twenty-first century.The plot is too obvious even to discuss in this forum. Others may do so, but I consider it an exercise analogous to a dog chasing its tail. Each main character is moreover annoying to the point of inviting frenzy as the only resolution to trying to understand what, exactly, each one is about. There is as well much shouting and physically running around, cell phones in hand.Watch it for its sets, its scenery, its depiction of contemporary Italy -- a cosmopolitan milieu eschewing travelogue vistas in favor of modern kitchens, television studios, and panoramic street scenes in residential neighborhoods.Providing, of course, that there is nothing better on the adjacent channel.

I watched "Ricordati di me" and it felt like a polite conversation that avoids self criticism and only accepts one's personal dreams and ambitions. A conversation that accomplishes nothing since the subconscious is too scared to embark on the dreams because there is no safety net. 'Remember Me, My Love,' as it is known in North America, is a great film that reveals the superficial mask of the family unit. It is the story of a family and its progressive loss of balance between the self and the public sphere of conventional happiness. This film begins beautifully with the personal woes of the family members and the audience can sense the inevitable tipping of the cauldron.The crossroads for most of the characters is based upon their personal potential and their own self-interests versus the ones created by their environments. For Carlo Ristuccia (played wonderfully by Fabrizio Bentivoglio), Giulia (another great performance by Laura Morante) and Alessia (played by the very talented Monica Belucci) the question at hand is based upon their waning existence. They all seem to feel lost and monotone while they struggle to feel the youthful sensation of bliss and love. The opening sequence is perfectly written and shot to portray the Ristuccias one dimensional life. The screenplay, subtle in its work, progressively displays the inevitable choices to be made by the members of the Ristuccia family.However, as the characters embark on their selfish adventures, they digress from their intentions and they seem to blindly be repeating their mistakes. Giulia attempts to reconcile her acting career yet fails to see the theme of the play as a reflection of her own state. Carlo, failing to write the last chapter of his novel, never completes his work because he is afraid to risk and lose. He, along with the rest of his family, tries to balance between the want and the need. A problem that is never realized - even in the end. "Remember Me, My Love" is a film that could have benefited from some slight editing, especially concerning Valentina's storyline, yet the end product leaves you feeling like the characters - a false sense of hope but a bigger sense of loss. This film strikes a reminiscent chord for its audience because it deals with loss - the loss of dreams, the loss of love - and its battle with throwing in the towel. None of the characters experience true happiness however they've convinced themselves at times. The first and final shot sum up the film beautifully as it questions the choices made by each of the man characters. It's all a facade, so enjoy the show.

The only way this soap opera turned into a feature film could have redeemed itself would have been with a "Godfather"-like ending: all of the offending parties (and God knows this family was filled with nothing but 'tipi antipatici') would be liquidated at the very end, as just retribution for their total 'antipatia'. This movie has not a single character in it who is likable, which, I suppose, makes for an interesting cinematographic exercise: you'd like to get up and leave these horrible people to themselves and the screen, but you can't bring yourself to do it because you're hoping that the director will obliterate them for you at some point in the film.