Ah, this movie -- came at the end of a long depressing string of the worst of the above. I had gone through the good stuff already and was well into the desperate search for therapeutic diversion. But I kept looking at one awful two-hour stretch of dreck after another. Crank, and Duplicity, and worst of all Surveillance were just making me feel sick or tired or both -- sick and tired. Then I took a chance on one of those movies with a single box on the Blockbuster shelf. It had the usual ivy garland decoration that meant it had at least shown in some festival or other.
I was reluctant to make the effort to view something at the end of a long engineering workday that required me to put my good glasses on and read subtitles and get into the rhythms and melodies of Italian. I'm accustomed to Spanish and French, Japanese, Chinese, but Italian? Did I really want to go there? I am so glad I did.
This movie reminds me of the French relationship movie from the 70s, "Cousin, Cousine." It's an understated but starkly realistic look at two married people rediscovering their meaning to each other after a sudden dramatic change in their circumstance. The man, something of a schlub, has lost his job -- forced out a company he co-founded. He is accustomed to being the boss and being powerful, and now he's nothing.
Even in his family dynamic, with his daughter especially, he tries to remain in control and be tough. His beautiful and brilliant wife has just earned an advanced degree in art history and is involved in a major project of her own devising. But it doesn't pay the bills, and she must forgo this work to take a job at a call center, with a second job at night as secretary in a shipping office while the staff clerk has a baby. She disappears from her friendships out of embarrassment. They move from a house to a dingy flat in a city complex. He takes a series of crummy temp jobs.
How these two adapt is the movie.
Like I say, what movies should be. No guns. No chase. No 'splosions. No car wrecks. No artificial crises involving machines or villains or weapons. But there are intense moments between family members that will make the hair stand up on your neck. There is emotional pain and people reacting in ways that you will recognize -- withdrawal, anger, paralysis, escape. There are touching moments that come from very ordinary actions, like offering a bottle of wine, commenting on the morning brioche, or calling someone and leaving a voicemail message.
The two last sentences of the movie, spoken by the man and woman while lying on a floor looking up at a ceiling, are perfect.
I was reluctant to make the effort to view something at the end of a long engineering workday that required me to put my good glasses on and read subtitles and get into the rhythms and melodies of Italian. I'm accustomed to Spanish and French, Japanese, Chinese, but Italian? Did I really want to go there? I am so glad I did.
This movie reminds me of the French relationship movie from the 70s, "Cousin, Cousine." It's an understated but starkly realistic look at two married people rediscovering their meaning to each other after a sudden dramatic change in their circumstance. The man, something of a schlub, has lost his job -- forced out a company he co-founded. He is accustomed to being the boss and being powerful, and now he's nothing.
Even in his family dynamic, with his daughter especially, he tries to remain in control and be tough. His beautiful and brilliant wife has just earned an advanced degree in art history and is involved in a major project of her own devising. But it doesn't pay the bills, and she must forgo this work to take a job at a call center, with a second job at night as secretary in a shipping office while the staff clerk has a baby. She disappears from her friendships out of embarrassment. They move from a house to a dingy flat in a city complex. He takes a series of crummy temp jobs.
How these two adapt is the movie.
Like I say, what movies should be. No guns. No chase. No 'splosions. No car wrecks. No artificial crises involving machines or villains or weapons. But there are intense moments between family members that will make the hair stand up on your neck. There is emotional pain and people reacting in ways that you will recognize -- withdrawal, anger, paralysis, escape. There are touching moments that come from very ordinary actions, like offering a bottle of wine, commenting on the morning brioche, or calling someone and leaving a voicemail message.
The two last sentences of the movie, spoken by the man and woman while lying on a floor looking up at a ceiling, are perfect.
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