L'immensità

Saw this back at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

L'immensita is a story about the love between the character Clara and her children, set in Rome in the '70s. Emanuele Crialese previous films has proven he has talent with directing, production and narrative style as I have enjoyed his previous works. Unfortunately while L'immensità is well performed from Penélope Cruz and extremely colorful production and camerawork, the film suffers from an uneven tone and generic narrative.

The narrative is pretty simple and each moment that happens was pretty predictable of what steps it was heading for. The tone of the film is the most confusing part as the film isn't sure if the film wants to become a drama, comedy or comedy-drama at the same time. Most of the characters were not as interesting as Crialese thinks they were as many of their arches felt underdeveloped and dull. While Cruz's performance was fantastic, the child performances were a mix of being decent or pretty poor. I don't like to criticize child actors since I understand they aren't as professional as adult actors but the uneven performance does feel distracting at times.

The film isn't fully terrible as the soundtrack is pretty good, the production and camerawork is colorful and fits the time period, and the film doesn't have a bad pacing which does help to make the film still be interesting at certain levels. But the film could have use some work with better writing and characters. Overall, there are some interesting moments but the uneven narrative and weak characters wasn't able to fully make the film as impactful as it wants to be.

Rating: C+

It's a family drama with a transgender subplot set in 1970 in Rome, Italy. It follows a summer in the life of a dysfunctional family.

Clara (Penélope Cruz) is the mother of three children. She is devoted to her children but has a rocky relationship with her philandering and abusive husband, Felice (Vincenzo Amato). Their oldest child, Adriana/Adri/Andrew (Luana Giuliani), is 12 years old, born as a girl but identifies as a boy. Gino (Patrizio Francioni) is a younger brother, and Diana (Maria Chiara Goretti) is perhaps a six-year-old girl.

Adri develops a summer friendship with a Romany girl named Sara (Penélope Nieto Conti), during which they identifies as Andrew. Their parents and extended family resist Adri's identification, though Clara is sympathetic. Eventually, the family encounters two crises, and Adri tries to escape through fantasy. "L'immensità" ends inconclusively.

The director came out as transgender with the release of this film. "L'immensità" tends to wander a bit but reflects a family in crisis very well. Cruz is probably too attractive for her role and tends to overshadow Luana Giuliani, who deserves great credit for a demanding and complex role.

I love art house Italian films from the 1970s so I wanted to see L'immensita but I found myself underwhelmed. The film is pretty, but not beautiful. It's artful but not terribly interesting. The musical moments were lovely but did not uplift a claustrophobic tale about a 12 year old trans boy obsessed with his unhappy mother. The emphasis here is on the experience of late childhood and puberty, the suffering of a trans adolescent resisting their given gender role in traditional society, and there's little escape into the wider world of Rome in the 1970s beyond a tween's impression taken from movies and television.

The movie is mostly sad and boring, and while I sympathize with the director I guess I am just not the target audience here. Also, I felt that the mother's supposed mental illness was too understated, too subtle. I didn't get that she was crazy, just miserable and looking for joy where she could find it with her kids, as she certainly couldn't have it with her husband.

I think as she ages, Penélope Cruz is beginning to look more like Sophia Loren and certainly here, I thought the resemblance was quite strong at times. Likewise, the young "Adri" (Luana Giuliani) looks a bit like Cruz too - who plays her mother "Clara". The story is set in a Roman 1970s of floral patterns and bell-bottomed trousers, post-war development and centres around the young daughter who really wants to be a boy. This isn't an in-your-face drama about sexuality, it's more nuanced than that and whilst the underlying frustrations of "Adri/Andrew" serves as a spine for the film, there is also a relationship between husband and wife, a broader familial one and the hint of a slightly undercooked romance between "Adri" and her new, less privileged, friend "Sara" (Penélope Nieto Conti). It's that last relationship that rather sums us the pretty bitty narrative here. We see snippets of their lives, but they are not necessarily that well connected to the theme. It's episodic without enough explanation. The marriage is failing, yes. Why? Well that we don't really know. The father/husband "Felice" (Vincenzo Amato) role is left hanging all to often, we have no idea what makes him tick nor, really, do we get to grips with what is troubling the loving and caring "Clara". Their son "Gino" (Patrizio Francioni) has a rather curious habit of leaving little deposits on the carpet and, indeed, it's really only the young "Diana" (María Chiara Goretti) who brings any sanity to this family arrangement. There is humour here, permitting us to take a breather from the frequently over-intense writing and there are a few musical numbers that showcase both Cruz and Giuliani as talented and skilful at their craft. It's worth a watch, and it looks stylish and classy, but I'm afraid I found it all just a bit too messy and superficial.

The movie projects a background history; that of an unhappy middle class family due to the careless and extremely restrictive character of the father. We see the older daughter, Adriana's rebellious attitude towards her father's loveless dominance and inability to care for his wife or children. When the movie starts, Adriana has already rejected her female, fragile and womanizing features. Adriana rejects everything that her mother is, but also looks after her since her father humiliates Clara, her mother . Gino also rebels and manifests his unhappiness by defecating around the house. The mother is evidently distraught and looking for ways to feel happy in a bland world which flows between drinking, smoking and her time with her children. A beautiful photography, a good script and very good acting of Penelope Cruz. Very realistic and plausible, beautiful in its own drama.