The first time I watched Per Amor Vostro I thought I didn’t like it because I didn’t get it. The second time I watched it I knew I didn’t like it and why. It’s a bad, bad movie.
Anna (Valeria Golino) lives in Naples with her cruel, sullen and crooked husband (Massimiliano Gallo) and her three kids. Her parents (the ones that sent her to juvy when she was eight to take the rap for her brother) criticize her and bleed her dry. Pretty much everyone around her tells her how worthless she is, including the creepy voice inside her head that never shuts up.
I guess it makes sense that when an actor she works with (Adriano Giannini) in her job as a cue card holder starts showing interest in her, she’s into it. He’s handsome. (Adriano Giannini is handsome.) He’s a famous TV star with presumably a lot of fans and could have his choice of women, so I have to admit that even though Anna is Valeria Golino and she’s gorgeous, she’s still Anna in the movie and kind of a mess. And she’s older. Valeria just turned fifty (though Anna’s probably supposed to be in her forties). Did it make any sense that she was so irresistable to a famous TV star?
But nothing really makes sense in this movie and everything is so far over the top that it gets embarrassing. Maybe if director Giovanni M. Gaudino had reigned it in a little it could have worked better but he seemed to think more was better. I would have preferred less: less over-acting, less angst, less of the confusing, trippy dream sequences and less scowling in Anna’s direction would have been a big improvement.
Valeria Golino won the Best Actress Coppa Volpi at last year’s Venice Film Festival for this role and while I admire her, there’s a perfect, “wish I had said that” quote from Boyd van Hoeij’s Hollywood Reporter review:
The jury, as has been known to happen when acting honors are considered, might have unintentionally confused “best acting” for “most acting.”
I Love Italian Everything 