Review of The First Beautiful Thing (2010) by Linda A — 02 Jul 2011
The Italian film Golden Age; most people agree that is started with Rosselini's "Rome-Open City" and ended about 15 years before the death of Mastroianni. Who's fault is that? We can't blame Berlusconi for everything.
This film deals with the last decade of the golden era. Through the eyes of a drug depending teacher, we see his mother. Again there's the rather common Italian theme "A woman too beautiful for her own good". We've seen tremendous narrating about that subject before. This is a try, by only on the son's conditions. He remembers his mother, how she involuntarily destroyed life for him and his sister. As long as she lives, the two of them can't even make a start.
What could have been a great attempt, slowly but surely lands into melodrama. Parents can stop developing, even for people getting into late middleage. This is anyway far from what the golden Italian directors could have done about that kind of story.
This review of The First Beautiful Thing (2010) was written by Linda A on 02 Jul 2011.
The First Beautiful Thing has generally received positive reviews.
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