Figlia mia

A very emotional and strong mother-daughter drama. One of the best acted films I have seen on the Berlinale so far. Its a moving story of a woman who returns into the life of her former friend and slowly trying to claim back the love of her estranged daughter, who is risen by her friend. The italian film is simply shot but with a great touch for emotionality. Valeria Golino has a great comeback role. Such great emotional strength as the woman who fights for her adopted daughter but still tries not to risk the friendship of the woman who is causing the trouble. Alba Roherwachter plays that woman and delivers a raw and very honest performance. Its hard to dislike her, even with all the mistakes she is doing. The true star however is Sara Casu who blew me away with such a wonderful performance. She really is able to embody every emotion. She is real and you really feel sorry for her every time she is on screen. It feels like she is a part of YOUR family that you have the desire to protect her from all of that. Great direction bx Laura Bisquri. The film is surrounded by a fantastic soundtrack. The screenplay is wonderfully written, without any pathos or melodramatic elements. A truly great family drama and a showcase of great performances.

First I must admit that I only watched only one hour of the film before I just had to leave the cinema in order to enjoy life again. I have never had a touch for Italian films and this one clearly answers why (but at least I gave it another shot). Everything is wrong. Dialogues, scenes, acting, filming. Latter is on such a low level that, like the rest of the movie, it physically hurts to watch it. And why bother to watch so much misery? Why bother to watch grownups screw up their lives like this? I often find movies from my home country (Norway) being slow in terms of dialogue and action, but this film even topped that. The action is so easy to predict; no, this was really, really bad. I saw the film within the program of the Oslo pix festival in June 2018.