Did you know that 38% of all Italian movies have the word “amore” in the title? No, I just made that up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t that far off. Just like here in the US, stupid romantic comedies are a staple of Italian cinema and it’s no big surprise that they make money and at the same time aren’t given great reviews.
I’m pretty hard on romantic comedies, ABSOLUTELY HATED Love Actually and have not seen many Italian romantic comedies that I’ve loved, so when I decided to watch Fausto Brizzi’s 2009 movie Ex I had very low expectations.
I’m gonna try to be fair, here and in the spirit of trying to be fair, I’ll admit it’s got a first-rate cast, a big one, in fact. Just like Love Actually, Ex has a cast of actors and actress that could be and have been in better movies. Silvio Orlando from Il Caimano, Claudia Gerini, from Non ti Muovere, Alessandro Gassman, from Basilicata Coast to Coast, and Claudio Bisio, from Benvenuti al Sud all find themselves embroiled in stories of lost love, tested love and love triangles. Luca (Silvio Orlando) is about to be divorced from Loredana (Carla Signoris), Sergio’s (Claudio Bisio) ex-wife dies, and Elisa is about to get married, and the priest is her ex – just to name a few.
The stories and the characters are intertwined in a mildly amusing and sympathetic way and I didn’t hate it as much as I thought, considering my low expectations. And who cares what I think, anyway. This kind of movie is obviously very popular, the ones with lots of characters and complicated plots; I’m not a big fan, but I think I’m outnumbered.
I do have some suggestions: 1) More of the characters should be young. While I appreciate love stories with older people, being one myself, I still think that Italy tends to tell too many of them. Italy is a country with an obscene number of good-looking people and they need to take advantage of it and make more movies that are love stories with pretty young actors. More young people would go to the movies in Italy if they did. Claudio Bisio is great, but no one under 30 is going to get excited about him as a leading man.
And where are the editors in these movies? They are way too long and take too much time to develop. Ex is two hours long, for goodness sake, and no movie that silly should be over an hour and a half.
If you are a fan of Love Actually you may like Ex, but I have a feeling that in a few weeks I’ll forget I ever watched it. It’s got English subtitles, but you’ll need a region free player.
I Love Italian Everything 