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Great Italian drama is true to life

Andres C. Salama | Buenos Aires, Argentina | 01/15/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Through a look at the life of a crumbling lower middle class family in Rome, first-time director Kim Stuart Rossi takes a surprisingly honest look at a number of issues, like divorce, and the role of males in contemporary Western European society. The movie is true to life in the best sense: the characters are very similar to people you know. Rossi Stuart also stars in the movie, playing a single father, living precariously as a cameraman, and having to take care of a young son and a teenage daughter (his irresponsible wife is in and out of the house, as the son explains to a rich neighbor and friend). The movie is shown through the eyes of the shy son, but I think the real protagonist is the father, a great dramatic creation of actor-director Rossi. He is a man with an explosive temper, always getting into trouble and thinking the whole world is against him, but he is not a bad person per se; it's just that his hyper masculine values seem to hold less and less value in today's society. Barbora Bolubova, playing the troubled wife, is also very fine. The end is a bit despairing, though as he says in the end, he has been down before, but has always bounced back."