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Clara (Penélope Cruz) and her emotionally distant husband Felice (Vincenzo Amato) relocate to Rome to raise a family. Even though the paint is fresh, and the appliances are new, the crushing expectations around marriage, desire, and gender in the early 1970s remain as traditional as ever. Their children Andrew (played by newcomer Luana Giuliani), Gino, and Diana are likewise poised at a precipice, on the verge of adolescence, with nothing but their imaginations to defuse family tensions. The eldest child, Andrew (nicknamed Adri by his parents), yearns for another life – an outsized, vibrantly-realized vision of a world where he gets to live as the boy he knows himself to be. Without an accepted vocabulary for talking about his transgender identity, Andrew tells adults that he’s an alien from another galaxy and makes a habit of running away to pursue a local Roma girl who accepts his boyhood at face value. As an outsider ostracized for her own eccentricities, Clara instinctively strives to protect her son despite not fully understanding him. An effortlessly moving film about growing up, fitting in, and breaking the mold, L’immensita is as freewheeling and creative as its central characters, mixing genres and staging musical numbers out of thin air.
- 4.7 / 5
Lucien de Rubempré (Benjamin Voisin) is an ambitious and unknown aspiring poet in 19th century France. He leaves his provincial town, arriving in Paris on the arm of his admirer, Louise de Bargeton (Cécile de France). Outmatched in elite circles, Lucien’s naive etiquette prompts Louise to retreat back to her husband, leaving the young poet to forge a new path. Lucien makes a new friend in another young writer, Etienne Lousteau (Vincent Lacoste), who introduces him to the business of journalism where a salon of wordsmiths and wunderkinds make or break the reputations of actors and artists with insouciant impunity. Lucien agrees to write rave reviews for bribes, achieving material success at the expense of his conscience and soon discovers that the written word can be an instrument of both beauty and deceit. Xavier Giannoli’s sumptuous adaptation of Honoré de Balzac’s epic novel, Lost Illusions is a ravishing vision of the birth of modern media.
- 5 / 5