“I bring to the cinema my memories and sentiments”, says director Daniele Luchetti of his newest film, Anni Felici (Those Happy Years). “It’s a story in which everything is reinvented to look for the truth. Much if of it is not true, but the feelings are all real.”
Starring Kim Rossi Stuart and Micaela Ramazzotti, this “autobiographical story” is told from Luchetti’s 14 year-old self’s perspective in 1974 and really lets it all hang out, to use ’70s terms, telling about his family.
In an interview, Luchetti said of the film, originally titled, The Mythological Story of My Family, “For me this is a very personal film. Mio Fratello è Figlio Unico was someone else’s story, (Antonio Pennacchi’s based on his book, Il Faschiocomunista). With La Nostra Vita I told about my neighbor’s life and in the end I realized that it was time to try to get closer to my family, to say for the first time “I”.
“It’s a story in which everything is reinvented to look for the truth. Much if of it is not true, but the feelings are all real.” 
And so watching this story, I couldn’t help asking myself, “Are his parents still alive?” and “How did they feel about their sexual and emotional ’70s selves evolving on the big screen for the world to see?” Kim Rossi Stuart stars as Guido, an artist and art teacher who seems to be wasting a lot of his time in his studio having sex with his college students/models, all beautiful and conveniently naked for their work. His wife Serena, played by Ramazzotti, is neither artistic or intellectual, and being relegated to the role of wife and mother and shut out by a husband who “doesn’t like to mix work with family” (obviously) leaves her insecure and unfulfilled.
At first she clings to her husband and tries to force her way in to his life in a more meaningful way, but when that doesn’t work, she decides to take off for a while and see if he misses her. 
Giudo, reeling from a disastrous art show in Milan and a bad review from an important critic, finds that he’s not the free spirit that he wanted to think he was when his wife announces that he’s going away for the summer, one that will change everything for the family.
I’ve always said that I could never be a writer because I’m not honest enough, and the honesty in Luchetti’s film is both beautiful and terrifying, be it real or embellished. The performances by Rossi Stuart and particularly Ramazzotti are shockingly authentic; Micaela, you’ve never been my favorite, but you have won me over in this career defining role and you deserve a David Di Donatello Award nomination for it. (Was Anni Felici not eligible this year?) 
Daniele Luchetti, having long been one of my favorites for “the funeral scene” in his La Nostra Vita, gives us this heartbreaking, bittersweet, and yet oddly life-affirming story and, I’m certain, paid an emotional price for it.
I Love Italian Everything 