Look for Maria Sole Tognazzi’s ‘Viaggio Sola’ (A Five Star Life) in American theaters in spring of 2014!
Not on my top 10 list of “Most Hoped For Italian Films To Open In America”, I’m still pleased to hear about any Margherita Buy movie coming here. Viaggio Sola earned her this year’s David di Donatello Award for best actress and makes the movie worthwhile. It’s nominated for an American Academy Award too, but I doubt if it has much of a chance.
To be distributed by Music Box Films, Viaggio Sola is about a hotel “Mystery Guest”, the person who pretends to be a normal hotel guest and is really there to critique the hotel for 5 star ratings. “Are you some kind of spy?” a man who she was having a drink with asked her when he couldn’t get a straight answer about her job. “I’m a kind of spy,” she admitted, and that was the closest she ever came to giving herself away.
Viaggio Sola was written by Ivan Cotroneo, who wrote the very charming Kryptonite! ( and that’s the one that should have opened in the US) and also stars actors that will be familiar to Americans, Stefano Accorsi (L’Ultimo Bacio) and Lesley Manville.
Though I can’t help wishing that this news was about La Migliore Offerta (or about a dozen other films I can think of), Margherita Buy is great in this movie, playing with expert subtlety a woman who lives without a man and not exactly a bitter about it; she lives this solitary life because, right or wrong, this way because she really wants to and she fully accepts the consequences of her choice.
Viaggio Sola means “I Travel Alone”, but the movie will be called A Five Star Life when it opens here.
I Love Italian Everything 