I Love Italian Everything

There are a couple of things, right off the bat, that are wrong with Agata e la Tempesta. The first is the cast, the second is the director.
There are also a couple of things that are great about Agata e la Tempesta. The first is the cast, and the second is the director.

The cast is comprised of some of my favorite actors in Italy today – obviously – it’s got half of the cast of Pane e Tulipani, my favorite movie.

I run to see every new movie with Giuseppe Battiston, who played Romeo in Agata and is probably one of the most often employed Italian actors (L’uomo Perfetto, La Bestia Nel Cuore, La Tigre e la Neve and many more). Licia Maglietta plays Agata, a sexy woman of a certain age and Marina Massironi plays Ines. For me, the three of them together will always be Constantino, Rosalba and Grazie in Pane e Tulipani and I think that I might have liked the movie better if director Sivio Soldini had gotten a little more creative with the cast.

The story is a good one. Gustavo, played by Emilio Solfrizzi finds out that he was adopted (traded for a sewing machine, rather) when he was a baby and has a bit of a freak out. With his adoptive sister’s help he gets to know his new family and makes some life changes. Almost all of the characters are cute and quirky – a little too much so, and there is way too much going on. You’ve got Agata blowing out electrical circuits, Gustavo’s wife on TV doing wacky pop psychology, his new brother with a bunch of crazy business ventures, the gang back at the architecture firm – there are about 10 more things like this and you can see for yourself.

And you should. See for yourself, I mean. It’s not horrible, and I was entertained. But I was disappointed. I think that Soldini just tried to do too much, and he made the characters too over the top eccentric, instead of walking that fine line and making them just plain cool like in Pane e Tulipani.