Bread and Tulips
My wife and I rented this flick the other night, and it’s not good nor is it bad. It’s just kind of average, hence the two stars. I couldn’t really tell if it wanted to be one of those lighthearted romantic European romps like Cinema Paradiso or a screwball kind of comedy the likes of Jerry Lewis. I mean, it was alright, but that’s all it was. Licia Maglietta plays Rosalba Barletta, an Italian housewife who lives in a small town taking care of her family, a lovely bunch that includes her husband (Antonio Catania) who has been cheating on her for years and her pot-smoking kids.
She seems to exist in their world to feed them and clean up after them. Rosalba is so naive about life that she doesn’t suspect a thing is wrong with it until she takes a family vacation and while trying to fish her wedding ring out of a rest stop toilet bowl she is left behind by the tour bus and subsequently has an epiphany. (Unrelated side note: Maybe my wife and I are different, but I think we would notice if one of the other was missing from a bus while on vacation together. Ah movies, suspension of disbelief and all that.) Rosalba calls her husband (Antonio Catania) on the bus, and he naturally goes ballistic because she’s thrown the group off schedule by getting left behind. This is when Rosalba discovers that she’s little more than a doormat for her hubby, so she takes off for Venice — which she has never seen — for a personal “vacation”.
Enter the screwiness. Quickly Rosabla meets soft-spoken and elusive waiter Fernando Girasoli (Bruno Ganz) who, after a brief encounter at the restaurant where he works, takes pity on her penniless state (she somehow has no money of her own on her) and lets her stay the night at an extra room in his apartment. Fast forward, Fernando has a sad past that he doesn’t speak of, but Rosalba learns by spying on him. She quickly decides to extend her “vacation” by finding a job with a crazy florist, befriending Girasoli’s kooky (and I don’t use that word lightly) next door neighbor, a holistic masseuse (Marina Massironi) who wears jewels in the middle of her forehead and has plumbing problems, and permanently moving into Girasoli’s place on a strictly platonic basis.
Starring:
Licia Maglietta, Bruno Ganz, Giuseppe Battiston, Marina Massironi, Antonio Catania
Directed By:
Silvio Soldini
Release Date:
July 27, 2001
MPAA Rating:
PG-13 for brief language, some sensuality and drug references.
Distributors:
First Look Pictures
2 Stars
Everything comes to a head when Rosalba’s husband tires of his shirts being wrinkled and steps up his quest to bring her home by hiring a plumber/private detective named Costantino (Giuseppe Battiston) to find her. The man is a comedy of errors. He attempts to get into character with a trench coat and clip-on sunglasses, but he’s still a bumbling plumber. Costantino was my favorite character in this uneven film if only because he rose the level of humor here from average to just a tenth of a point above average. I pulled for him because even though he’s in a city of 60,000 people he knows he can find Rosalba, even if he’s got to look at the other 59,999 people first. He was the high point.
In the end, I have no strong feelings about this film. I’m only puzzled by questions like:
Why did the writers feel compelled to make a man named Fernando Girasoli a native of Iceland? “Hi, I’m Fernando and I’m from Iceland.” No wonder he moved to Italy.
Why did there have to be a scene where we are forced to see the sweaty man-boobs of the overweight plumber/private eye? And why would a decent looking woman like the kooky masseuse think that was hot?
But you shouldn’t try too hard to answers to these questions. Even with the added knowledge you’d still end up feeling neither good nor bad about the film.