The difference between a good movie and a great movies is this: A great movie tells a complex story and then steps back, affecting everyone who sees it differently, while a good movie entertains by showing us what it wants us to see and manipulating how we feel about it.
L’industriale is a good movie.
When Nicola, a factory owner (Pierfrancesco Favino) is on the verge of losing his business, there’s nothing unpredictable about his situation. The factory was inherited from his beloved father and Nicola’s struggling to fill his shoes and live up to a legacy that might not be possible in a modern financial climate. Laura, his beautiful ,rich, and devoted wife wants to help him but he’s too proud to accept her help. His mother-in-law is a cold, heartless bitch that seems determined to see him fail, his business associates are duplicitous fops and the banker is Ebenezer Scrooge. Of course they are. This movie is a freaking gothic novel.
Nicola is depressed (no kidding) and no fun to be around, so Laura does what every good wife does when her husband is facing a crisis, she starts hanging out with a handsome young parking lot attendant. If Nicola thought things were bad at work, it didn’t prepare him for what was about to happen at home, dining alone with a servant standing by, wondering if his wife had lied about where she was that night.
Nicola’s life goes from bad to worse to worse than worse and who is to blame – China? Damn you, Eurozone crisis! This is all your fault.
Nicola nor Laura seem to want to assume any blame for what is happening to them, and I felt led down a path by the filmmakers to the conclusion that they were victims of circumstance beyond their control, but I wasn’t buying it.
That doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy the movie. Pierfrancesco Favino was very believable as the guy backed into a corner and eventually I suspended belief and allowed the implausiblity of the story to entertain and not annoy me.
Warning: There were no English subtitle on my DVD.
2011
Director: Giuliano Montaldo
Writers: Giuliano Montaldo, Vera Pescarolo
Stars: Pierfrancesco Favino, Carolina Crescentini and Eduard Gabia
I Love Italian Everything 