Customer Reviews

Remember Me ( Ricordati di me ) ( Remember Me, My Love ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2.4 Import - Australia ]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is an excellent film. Listening to the Italian makes me think it is the language in which all battles should be fought! "Ricordati Di Me" or "Remember Me, My Love" is a domestic drama that maps the lack of closeness in the modern life of an Italian family & the bonds of love that lay deep beneath the surface that hold them together. The blockbuster performance is by Laura Morante as Giulia, the wife of Carlo. She puts so much energy into this performance that she is incredible. Kind of like a high-octane version of some of Jane Fonda's edgy classic performances, Laura seems to be torn in numerous directions simultaneously. Her eyes twitch, her hands flap, she even smokes a cigarette with more nervous energy than some would expend at a football match. She is a marvel to watch. Fabrizio Bentivoglio as her husband Carlo portrays the graying accountant, apparently going through a mid-life crisis by having an affair by the lovely Monica Belucci who plays Alessia. He seems particularly calm & sedate until he comes alive with eyes sparkling for Alessia. His calmness seems all the more sedate compared to the furious storm of Laura Morante. As the daughter Valentina, Nicolette Romanoff is beautiful and turns in a good performance as the daughter looking to make her mark in show business and willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish that. Silvio Muccino as the son Paolo does a nice job as a teenage guy who is trying to get some romantic experience. Monica Belucci's performance is as deep as she is beautiful. The photography and pacing of the film are all ably handled by director Gabriele Muccino. [I particularly enjoyed seeing on the wall of the son's bedroom a large three concentric circle CD holder that doubled as a wall hanging and functional CD container. Where can I find one of those! :) ] While the plot is not shocking or startling, it is well done. This is a film well worth checking out; and certainly for seeing the fine performance of Laura Morante. Enjoy!

RECORDATI DI ME is a beautifully written and constructed film by Italian director Gabriele Muccino about the workings of a 'normal middle class' family and the bonds and challenges that peak at the time of fragmentation of the family unit that accompanies 10 middle age of the parents and 2) departure of the children at the end of high school. How those crises and adjustments inform the durability of the family unit makes up this thoroughly engrossing and touching film.

Carlo Ristuccia (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) is the father embedded in a life long job that is mundane and not at all in line with his dreams of being a writer (he has been writing a novel for years, yet unfinished). His wife Giulia (Laura Morante) is a committed mother but longs to return to the acting stage she abandoned for marriage. Their two children are Valentina (Nicolette Romanoff) who is determined to become a glamourous TV star and Paolo (Silvio Muccino) who is aimless in his desire for a life of meaning, a life which would prove he is not as unexceptional as he views himself.

Gradually each member of the family encounters escape routes: Carlo meets his old girlfriend Alessia (Monica Bellucci) and begins an affair with her; Giulia is asked to audition for a part in a play directed by one Alfredo (Gabriele Lavia) who makes her feel desirable and noticed; Valentina sleeps around to land a part in a TV giveaway show 'Ali Babbi', and Paolo attempts to attach himself to a girlfriend by planning a birthday party with contraband hashish which he feels will make him appear important in the eyes of his peers. AS each of these crises reaches a peek, Carlo sustains a back injury while fleeing his home and his resultant hospitalization results in altered perceptions of what the family is all about.

The twists and turns of the plot are, of course, far more involved than this short synopsis, and it is the development of each of these characters and the way that they approach change that makes the film work so well.

The acting is excellent and the direction is past paced even for a two and a half hour movie. Yes, much of this has been said before, but the wit and pathos combine to create a story well worth telling and watching. It is a story about dreams, lost possibilities, and the need to fulfill them. Grady Harp, March 05

This is a great film, full of life, emotion and realistic people. None of my friends/family can watch foreign films, its to bothersome for them to read subtitles. I try time and again to get them to watch just 1 italian film, and that film is this one. I'm reviewing this film because I collect film with Monica Bellucci in them. While her role in this film is that of the mistress and the 3rd female role, the daughter is the 2nd female lead. Monica's part is frequent. But in the end this film is not about her, its about the family, and a great job all the actors/actress do of being this family in Roma. So in conclusion its not Monica's film. But it is a jewel of a film nonetheless.

If the name "Monica Bellucci" is on the cover, Husband buys it. Although in this movie she was not a primary or secondary actress, her performance was convincing, although Laura Morante was very strong in the main female role of a frustrated wife who felt she'd done everything life expected of her, expect what she wanted. Fabrizio Bentrivoglio was good in the role of her apathetic husband who also slowly rediscovers his passion in life (with, unsurprisingly, Monica Bellucci as the catalyst.) Silvio Muccino as the insecure son Paolo and Nicoletta Romanoff as his ruthlessly ambitious sister Valentina also played their roles well.

However, it was hard to find this dysfunctional family - each too absorbed in their own lives and concerns - sympathetic. When a crisis occurred, one couldn't help but feel that the rallying together as a family had more to do with their own personal agendas than with love. I was left feeling deflated, depressed and exasperated with each of them.

English sub-titles were adequate, although because they were white there were times (white-on-white) when I found myself straining to read them.

Esta pelicula me encanto. Una historia de amor que a veces suceden. El amor de la esposa, la hija que quiere ser famosa y para alcanzarlo tiene que sacrificarse, y el papel que juega la amante, Monica Belluci. Pero la esposa, se llevo la actuacion. Sensacional.
Una pelicula para verla de nuevo.
Se las recomiendo

It could be that the the bottle of Pinot that I had along with the movie that me biased, but I don't think so.

Keeping up with the best traditions of Italian cinema, this movie engrosses the viewer with its simple, yet very realistic dialog, characters and plot.

Through the scenes we experience the characters longing for the very basic human happiness. Each of them, is different and seeks a happiness of different form. But ultimately, they all are looking for the same thing.

The main virtues of this film reside in the solidity of its script, superb edition and the formidable cast. The story is very simple; a mid-class family, a bored couple and their two sons, she is teenager at the eve of her 18 and he is frustrated adolescent, a loser who at the first glance is incapable to establish a normal relationship , on the other hand she is a glamorous and alluring girl, in search of her bliss, to be accepted and being acclaimed due her dancing abilities.

This couple is experiencing a serious conflict of mutual interests that surmount by far, a simple issue of lack of communication, he is successful executive, who never could finish his pretended project, a book that has not ben ended due random barriers, here and there, she is a very sensitive and talented human being, a frustrated actress , now focused into the formation of her children.

But soon, this fragile equilibrium will be catalyzed when a sudden encounter with a fevered love of the past ignites and accelerates the boiling point in this family.

The work of direction is impeccable, and the struggling atmosphere in which these personages exist, will push them to find out a reencounter with each one of them when an unexpected accident happens.

Laura Morante is terrific in her role (do you remember her as the dance teacher in dancing upstairs of John Malkovioch?) and Monica Belluci gives a fine performance (although her alluring and spelling beauty obligates us to refocus ourselves with her acting).

The secondary dramatic lines are handled with secure hand, but told with such conviction that we leave the hall with a bitter taste in our memories , in spite of the pleasant finale.

A must-see.

An excellent film of life and the one of the possible effects to the unity of a family. There is more than one love and many times it is difficult to choose what is right moral and true.

This is a film about the contemporary italian family consisting of midlle aged, professional parents who are both working and their teenage children. Each one of them is living numb existance. They are bored, lonely, insecure, unhappy with their jobs/careers or high school existance. They also feed emotionally off each other. Their rages are directed at each other with such force that it almost makes one dizzy.

What they experience and how they come out of those experiences I do not wish to retell in this review. But movie itself is really worth watching in order to find out. Laura Morante gives fantastic performance as a frustrated mother, wife and an artist; but Monica Belucci is just so beautiful that one cannot take their eyes off of her. Someone as beautiful as her is almost expected to steal another woman's man with very little or no effort. I also liked the music score used in this modern day drama where there are no winners and no loosers but an endless string of avalanche like events...

... and as such an acceptable entertainment, but the after-taste is missing. The story tries to depict a normal family of four, living each its own separate life and pursuing their own individual dreams. The tension between their own routines and realities and what they would like to be makes them explode, one by one, and hit the wall, to come back again to reality and family unity at the end.

Some sort of fairy tale, actors and scenography are very good, emotions are openly ventilated - as in any good italian movie worth its name -, and a lot of scenes have real credibility.

But when the film is over, without the emotions, the scenography, the great looks of Valentina and the uncertain end of each of the four little stories, very little is left, and the whole exercise shows its superficiality. Just a good italian wine ...