Made In Italy

Made in Italy

Director. James D’Arcy. Cast: Yolanda Kettle, Micheál Richardson, Souad Faress, Liam Neeson, Lindsay Duncan,Valeria Bilello.

First things first: this film is cheesy like the Italian cheese, it’s got one of the most sentimental script you can find on Amazon Prime these days, it portrayals Tuscany in the most cliche way one could ever imagine and you can see where the whole plot is going from miles away. But you know what? None of that matters. This is also an extremely watchable film, in fact quite calm-inducing and I would be lying if I didn’t tell you I found myself laughing out-loud in a few places and actually at the end I was pretty chocked up and (and felt a bit dirty for falling for it).Not everything needs to be a masterpiece and once in a while a harmless film like this is not going to hurt anyone.The main appeal of course is the ever-wonderful Liam Neeson, here acting with is own son, who ’s actually rather likeable too. One cannot help but drawing parallels with the plot of the film and the actors’ real life events. Liam Neeson’s wife in the film has died in a car accident. Tragically his real wife died on ski accident in 2009. These echoes from real life infuse the film with strange atmosphere and add an extra layer of gravitas and poignancy to it: some of the scenes between father and son coming to terms with the death of the wife/mother (which must have been quite tough to do) are actually quite powerful, despite the syrupy music and the terrible scripted lines of dialogue which lack any subtlelty. Knowing what I know and because I really love Neeson, I just can’t be too critical towards this film.

I enjoyed it even if in a disposable sort of way… Bit like a warm bath.

On Amazon Prime