Good concept, poorly executed.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

With only 6 full-length feature films under his belt Paolo Sorrentino has already established himself as one of the cinema's greatest stylists. Indeed, I think Sorrentino will turn out to be one of the great directors and not just in his native Italy. His first foray into English, "This Must Be The Place", was an extraordinary American road- movie and a very worthy addition to both that genre and to those visions of America, (and in that particular case, Ireland as well), as seen through the eyes of an outsider. "The Family Friend" was his third film and it, too, is astonishing. It's about a loan shark, the thoroughly despicable Geremia, (a wonderful performance from Giacomo Rizzo), who could have come straight from the pages of a Dickens novel and, though himself in middle-age, lives with his ancient, bed-ridden mother and is on the look-out for a wife or at least a woman. He is a man who takes no prisoners and is certainly not the kind of man you would like to cross. Then one day he meets Rosalba, the daughter of a couple who have borrowed money from him to pay for her wedding, and he is smitten, even though she despises him. This is a dark and very funny film; a variation on "Beauty and the Beast" where the beast really is a beast, a "Phantom of the Opera" where the phantom is as hideous on the inside as he is on the outside, told in the same gloriously broad strokes that Sorrentino has brought to all his films. Critics have compared him to Fellini, (and his most recent film, "The Great Beauty", is a "La Dolce Vita" for the 21st century), but Sorrentino is much too original a talent to be compared to anyone and "The Family Friend" is a true original. Right now I think the only director turning out movies this good, on such a consistent basis, is Paul Thomas Anderson. For starters, they both share the same sense of the absurd though when it comes to the use of music in his movies I think Sorrentino has the edge on all his competitors.

An impressive and stylish film. Rizzo as Geremia the main character is marvellous. He dominates every scene. His simian style shuffle from side to side, his carrier bag swinging gently from side to side hanging from his bad arm. It is through his eyes we see the world and so the criticism of the female flesh on display seems a bit naieve. It's a stylish film shot through with Sorrentino's flamboyant flourishes of camera movement and against the grain cutting, almost too abrupt sometimes. I enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed the Consequences of Love and I recommend both of them. There are moments of revelatory dialogue on the nature of existence which doesn't offend or get tied up in long soliliquay's and quite odd scenes offering a glimpse of darkness in this man's tarnished, cynical world where everything, even a kitsch figurine, has a price. It's an icy film and I did come away from it not really sure what I had learned about the characters or what it was trying to say. I was a little disappointed with the end but that said it's offbeat in so many ways I forgive it it's flaws.

In a word, weird form the outset. From the opening creepy noises and extreme visual stimulation to the random cuts and bizarre set pieces 'The Family Friend' is nothing if not captivating. Its directed superbly by Paolo Sorrentino, whose last film the 'The Consequences of Love' should give you some idea of his visual style and flair, add to this the great cinematography, brilliant use of music and the twisted central performance of Giacomo Rizzo as Geremia and you have a truly excellent if not a little disturbing movie which is part Lynch, Part Fellini and all original. Geremia is a seventy year old tailor which is actually a cover for the fact he is a loan shark. Lonely and sleazy he prays on the needy and during the loan deals poses as a family friend to surround himself with people. One such family borrows money for their daughters wedding and Geremia becomes self appointed helper and starts arranging things for the young couple. Eventually he falls for the bride to be, a winner of the local beauty pageant, and the film becomes a kind of beauty and the beast tale. She is the gorgeous young girl overly fond of dancing and he amongst other things is a seedy, beastly rapist. The films characters are pretty much all unredeemable and it comes across like an Italian 'League of Gentlemen' with its dark humour and strange set ups. The music adds to the weirdness by ranging from Anthony and the Johnsons to classical and country and western. Just like 'Hidden' from last year the film leaves loads of unanswered questions and loose ends but that adds to its deconstructed nature and doesn't detract in anyway from the main story. Its in the smaller things that this film shines like when everyone takes their own chairs to the beauty contest as 'the sponsor and provider of seats pulled out at the last minute' or how Geremia's carrier bag swings from side to side over his plastered arm as he waddles along in schoolboy short trousers. This film won't be to everyone's liking, it is almost certainly an acquired taste, but those that can get under its skin won't be disappointed and will love it for all its creepy eccentricities

At a superficial level this is Beauty And The Beast with spin. The Beast isn't really handsome and Beauty doesn't really fall in love with him but he is unprepossessing to say the least and she is attractive and maybe even beautiful in the right light. The Beast, Geremia is a tailor by profession who does a little loan sharking on the side and loses no opportunity to waive repayments in return for sexual favours reaching a new low on the day he sleeps with a young bride minutes before her wedding. As if to emphasize the fairytale source the director allows no chance to point up the squalor in which Geremia lives with his bedridden mother to go unexploited whilst contrasting this with a succession of comely young girls. Woven inextricably into all this is a Sting perpetrated by Geremia's best friend, Gino. It's an interesting movie to say the least and a notable follow-up to the same directors The Consequences Of Love but I'm not sure if it will stand subsequent viewings.