On my last day in Rome of course I went to the movies. Luckily the new movies come out on Friday so I got to see one that has just opened – Ricky Tognazzi’s ” Il Padre e lo Straniero”, starring Alessandro Gassman. This one’s a tearjerker.Alessandro plays Diego, a father who forms a deep friendship with rich Syrian businessman Walid (Amr Waked), when their sons, both severely handicapped, are receiving treatment at the same physical therapy facility in Rome. DIego hasn’t exactly been Father of the Year as he has never really accepted the reality of living with his son’s limitations. He works too much, and he neglects his son and his marriage. Walid recognizes this and reaches out to him. Through example, he shows him how to see past the disability and to love his son for who he is.
So when trouble begins to brew for Walid, Diego is committed to helping him, and goes to a lot of trouble to do it. It’s a pretty exciting story, full of suspense and intrigue, an interesting twist for a such an emotional movie. It bothered me a little – I liked both parts, he personal struggle and the suspense, but the combination of the two was not seamless. And I liked the friendship between the two men but I’m not sure that Tognazzi spent enough time explaining it. Maybe it’s just that you can’t spend what you don’t have.
This is what almost ruins the end of “Il Padre e lo Straniero”- it was first a book, and I’d bet anything that it’s a really complicated one that would have taken 6 hours to tell properly in movie form. I’ll bet the end of the book makes sense – in the movie it’s just a bunch of loose ends all tied up too neatly.
Walid has a secret that kept me at the edge of my seat and almost gets Diego killed and for me, the bottom line is this : I think that Italian filmmakers should make more like this one – story driven and exploring more than just couples in crisis. This is the kind that could be exported and enjoyed everywhere.
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