Stars:
***
Rating: NR, but should be
PG-13 for mature themes and language
Run
Time: 2
hours, 5 minutes. In Italian with English subtitles
There’s
nothing quite like a meaty Italian drama, chock full of flailing hands and
passionate histrionics. Gabriele
Muccino’s (The Last Kiss)
middle-class family production borders on false bravado but ultimately
satisfies.
The
Ristuccia’s nuclear family is coming apart at the seams. Mom Giulia and Dad Carlo (Laura Morante and
Fabrizio Bentivoglio) have kissed their dreams goodbye and settled for the
staid existence of the contemporary worker bee.
Their surly teenagers Valentina (Nicoletta Romanoff) and Paolo (Silvio Muccino)
rule the roost, driving their parents mad with immature posturings and selfish
demands.
When it
blows it blows big. Giulia is offered a
job on the stage, and finds that she can’t let go of that distant seed of
ambition. Carlo, a financier cum
frustrated novelist, meets an old flame at a party (Monica Bellucci) then
re-kindles the friendship into something fierier and perhaps permanent.
While her folks
are struggling to find themselves, star-struck Valentina auditions for a
popular TV show and unexpectedly lands the job.
Paolo’s simple wish is for a girlfriend, and for his volatile family
members to acknowledge his plight.
The
fissures of unhappiness widen to chasms; a family that was already adrift has
trouble finding its way back to shore. Though
well-crafted and elegantly tuned, the story is often so familiar that it feels
stale. But Muccino cunningly plays his
characters as a unit and as
individuals, allowing for a continual series of dramatic vignettes.
Though
billed as a love story, Remember
is anything but. Its sketchy values speak of disillusionment, resignation, and
playing the card that may be your last. Not a glowing tribute to matrimony, but
definitely worth a look.