I was really disappointed with this movie. Perhaps it had something to do with Mama Roma which I had just watched. I did not find Magnoni realistic for the part. She was acting so hard it hurt me. I can understand a mother who pursues an acting chance for her child but this mother took it to excess and then threw away the opportunity she had "sacrificed" so much for. The ending of the movie was ridiculous - she returns from the screen test to find a contract waiting for her, and at 2,000,000 lira to boot, and can find nothing to say but that she is hurt that her daughter was used as a fun object and laughed at. With the brazenness and unfeeling attitude she displayed all through the film I could not find her rejection of a contract believable in the least.
We were supposed to see her husband as a brutish lout but he just did not appear that way. He seemed the sensible parent, not like the mother. She made a show of showing the way she was beaten but there were no signs at all. And when she said to him at the end about slapping her it was not realistic at all. That part was just in the story I suppose to make her a repository of our sympathies. But it just did not work. In my opinion he was a much better parent than she.
I am am not sure why people find Magnoni a compelling actress. She is earthy and annoying. She seems one-dimensional to me. I could not see much difference in her performances in this film and Mama Roma.
We were supposed to see her husband as a brutish lout but he just did not appear that way. He seemed the sensible parent, not like the mother. She made a show of showing the way she was beaten but there were no signs at all. And when she said to him at the end about slapping her it was not realistic at all. That part was just in the story I suppose to make her a repository of our sympathies. But it just did not work. In my opinion he was a much better parent than she.
I am am not sure why people find Magnoni a compelling actress. She is earthy and annoying. She seems one-dimensional to me. I could not see much difference in her performances in this film and Mama Roma.