Very well executed

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

A gorgeous Rome. Few friends. Some tensions. And a lost. Nothing new, impressive or strange. Only little drops of cinnamon atmosphere. It is an old poem. Every word is known. Every sound is familiar. So, it is not good or bad; it is only madlene of experiences of life, movies, books, dreams, desires. Stefano Accorsi is beautiful but he remains a smoke statue. Pierfrancesco Favino is interesting and may be the axis of movie; but in the last part is only piece of stage. The characters are paper cakes. And the good intentions, larges, are only... intentions. The film talks about the things of ordinary past. For the Bovary's clones or paseistics, for the sensitives guys or for a white night may be a good gift. But not more. That the seeds of a new day makes the old lyrics only flakes of ash.

This is a film that tries to do for men what countless movies have done for women: expose the real pain men feel when love is lost. We've seen the genre exploited for the female market ad infinitum. We rarely see it for men.That's the theme of this movie: how do men deal with the loss of love? For those of you who have seen it and are questioning what the movie was about, consider it. . . . There's the lover who abandons, the lover who is abandoned, the father who rejected, and the lover whose lover dies. Aside from the title, a major clue is the reference to "Rebecca," a film about a man who grieves for lost love, and yet who is accused of murdering that love. It is perhaps the ultimate movie about submerged male emotion. In that film the woman (the second wife) is both a participant and an observer, as is the case with most of the women in this film. Then there's the title, a reference to a Saturnalia, a "party" where traditional roles are reversed. In this movie, it is the women who observe the men dealing with lost love, not the other way around as it usually is.It's not difficult for me to understand the "tepid response" of some reviewers, particularly those who are male. Males are so unplugged from this part of life that it is understandable they could watch a whole movie about lost love and not recognize what it is.

A good cast - Ambra Angiolini is stunning, Serra Yilmaz is captivating, Margherita Buy is lovely and Lunetta Savino is herself, eminently watchable although memories of "raccontami" surface "in continuo". Precluding the utterly banal homosexual sub-plot which by now we're all completely bored with the film is quite engaging. There are some lovely scenes from the streets of Rome and the film is very true to modern everyday parlance. The question that remains after watching it is, "what were you trying to tell me Ferzan?". Perhaps he didn't want to say anything but just felt like making a film about some average people, in which case he should have chucked out the homosexual aspect altogether.One of the best aspects of this film is the theme song that goes with it which was written and performed by Neffa. The video is excellent - even if it doesn't quite concentrate enough on Ambra Angiolini!Nearly but not quite - three out of ten.

*Saturno SPOILERS* When young Lorenzo (Luca Argentero) suddenly collapses during a dinner with friends, his (not officially, obviously) husband Davide (Pierfrancesco Favino), and their friends, among whom there is Antonio (Stefano Accorsi), who is cheating on his wife Angelica (Margherita Buy) with a florist (Isabella Ferrari) but still loves her, are all forced to face the fact that he isn't ever going to come back, because as one of them informs the others, it's a condition which you cannot come back from without a miracle, and in real life there are no miracles...I probably am the only one who has added 'Saturno Contro' to his 'Buy As Soon As It Comes Out On DVD' list, but maybe it's because I can relate a lot to the plot, being myself a guy who tries to keep things as they were, 'forever... even if forever isn't possible'.Maybe the fact that it had a top-notch cast (especially good were Argentero, Favino, Accorsi, and Ambra Angiolini as a drug addict businesswoman, who is actually more deep than anyone gives her credit for.Serra Ylmaz is a little obnoxious (as an example, when she scolds Lorenzo a few hours before he slumps into unconsciousness and never returns), Fantastichini is cute as Davide's 'Rebecca, the first wife' (the first wife is the Italian subtitle of the Hitchcock movie Rebecca) ('first' lover) Sergio, and TV Stars Lunetta Savino and Milena Vukotic give two very nice performances, the first as Lorenzo's bubbly stepmother, and the second as a sympathetic nurse.This is my first Ozpetek movie (besides having begun to watch 'La Finestra Di Fronte'), but his subdued directing has already won me over, as has his not making Davide and Lorenzo's relationship some kind of political statement, but showing that homosexuals are not aliens from another world, like some bigoted Government members and Church members seem to think, but people like everyone else, who live and die like everyone else, and suffer as such.The script, and especially the characters, were also well written, and the music by Italian R&B Singer Neffa, who also sang the theme 'Passione' ('Passion') was very involving.One trivia: the title was supposed to be 'Mentre Lorenzo Dorme' ('While Lorenzo Sleeps') before becoming 'Saturno Contro' ('Negative Saturn' - it's an astrology term).Saturno Contro: 9/10.