Reason #1 to be in New York City for Open Roads, New Italian Cinema: Ivano De Matteo’s
‘I Nostri Ragazzi‘.
Based on Herman Koch’s best-selling book, The Dinner, Ivano De Matteo’s ‘I Nostri Ragazzi’ will be screened at Lincoln Center’s amazing Italian film festival, Open Roads: New Italian Cinema.
With its cast to die for, Luigi Lo Cascio, Alessandro Gassman, Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Barbora Bobulova, ‘I Nostri Ragazzi’ The Dinner, as it is called here in the US, premiered at the Giornate Degli Autori or “Venice Days” section of the Venice Film Festival.
I’m a big fan of Koch’s book, so I was surprised and delighted to find a movie that actually improved it. In the book, the major part of the dialogue took place over the course of one unpleasant evening, it didn’t work as well for me as the movie’s more natural plot progression and the changing settings in the movie.
When two brothers, more for appearance sake than anything else, get together with wives that hate each other for a monthly dinner, it’s not fun for anybody but it’s just something one does. The monotony of the family tradition might have continued forever had it not been for something their kids got involved in, something worse than anyone could have expected.
De Matteo did a great job of adding humor and humanity to Koch’s dark story, and this one is not to be missed.
I Love Italian Everything 