Spoiler Alert I was unlucky enough to see this awful movie at its presentation in Venice Festival last week. Experts may be put off by various technical aspects of the movie, how the actors played, photography, etc. I took offence at the incredible screenplay. Two examples of what I consider an absolutely outrageous way to treat audiences' intelligence:
1. Emma (Barbora Bobulova) is a surgeon. She is reviewing some images of an operation just finished in the middle of the night (do you know of any planned surgery to take place in the night?) during which she had to take over and finish what the lead surgeon, Leonardo (Stefano Dionisi), having had a nervous breakdown episode in the operating room, could not. Leonardo appears in the dim lit room and forces himself onto her, in a clear attempt of a rape. She fights back, hits him where it hurts most (HURRAY!). He falls on the ground, semi-unconscious (double hurray!). She freezes. Without even re-arranging her dress and underwear, leans towards him and utters: "I am sorry, did I hurt you?" Unfortunately, she means it, literally, and falls into his arms for a passionate encounter. WHAT?!? For a slightly more credible outcome of a situation like this one, I would have expected anything between a call for help or a stabbing of the bastard, Tosca-style. Not this pitifully unbelievable comedy.
2. Matteo (Stefano Accorsi) is a specialist in emergencies. He works on ambulances (I may be wrong, but, at least in Italy, there normally are no doctors on ambulances.... but let us not digress...) On the same night of the scene above, Elena (Violante Placido), a volunteer trainee, is on his ambulance. The long night is over. They drop off the driver (?!?!?). Accorsi takes the wheel. Here comes the twist of the movie: a feat flying in the face of all possible chances of destiny. While they are driving on one of Rome's numerous bridges, they come across a driver coming from the opposite side who is, obviously, losing control of his car. Accorsi steers straight into the side of the bridge and off the bridge and into the Tevere (which, in this sequence seems as deep as the giant reef fault...). Incredible? Wait and hear who was the other driver... The same Leonardo who was not following his lane because he was receiving a call back from Emma after their idyllic encounter, none less. How is anyone possibly expected to find this even remotely admissible? Probably a question for Messers Contarello and Piccolo who authored this masterpiece of Screenplay.
My final thought goes to the performance of Stefano Accorsi, an actor whom I have come to greatly appreciate in all his previous works. In this film one needs to wait until the last scene in which he appears in a full frontal nude to realize his attributes. Unfortunately, not the artistic ones.
1. Emma (Barbora Bobulova) is a surgeon. She is reviewing some images of an operation just finished in the middle of the night (do you know of any planned surgery to take place in the night?) during which she had to take over and finish what the lead surgeon, Leonardo (Stefano Dionisi), having had a nervous breakdown episode in the operating room, could not. Leonardo appears in the dim lit room and forces himself onto her, in a clear attempt of a rape. She fights back, hits him where it hurts most (HURRAY!). He falls on the ground, semi-unconscious (double hurray!). She freezes. Without even re-arranging her dress and underwear, leans towards him and utters: "I am sorry, did I hurt you?" Unfortunately, she means it, literally, and falls into his arms for a passionate encounter. WHAT?!? For a slightly more credible outcome of a situation like this one, I would have expected anything between a call for help or a stabbing of the bastard, Tosca-style. Not this pitifully unbelievable comedy.
2. Matteo (Stefano Accorsi) is a specialist in emergencies. He works on ambulances (I may be wrong, but, at least in Italy, there normally are no doctors on ambulances.... but let us not digress...) On the same night of the scene above, Elena (Violante Placido), a volunteer trainee, is on his ambulance. The long night is over. They drop off the driver (?!?!?). Accorsi takes the wheel. Here comes the twist of the movie: a feat flying in the face of all possible chances of destiny. While they are driving on one of Rome's numerous bridges, they come across a driver coming from the opposite side who is, obviously, losing control of his car. Accorsi steers straight into the side of the bridge and off the bridge and into the Tevere (which, in this sequence seems as deep as the giant reef fault...). Incredible? Wait and hear who was the other driver... The same Leonardo who was not following his lane because he was receiving a call back from Emma after their idyllic encounter, none less. How is anyone possibly expected to find this even remotely admissible? Probably a question for Messers Contarello and Piccolo who authored this masterpiece of Screenplay.
My final thought goes to the performance of Stefano Accorsi, an actor whom I have come to greatly appreciate in all his previous works. In this film one needs to wait until the last scene in which he appears in a full frontal nude to realize his attributes. Unfortunately, not the artistic ones.