Pretty Good

Fresh and Exciting

As Good As It Gets

The first must-see film of the year.

"Caterina va in città" has the quality every great Italian masterpiece has: every time you watch it, you discover a topic you hadn't noticed before and you never get tired of his funny sequences, mainly because from those scenes you draw the conclusions about what this film wanted to communicate."Caterina va in città" can count on some of the best current Italian actors: Sergio Castellitto and Margherita Buy, who play Caterina's parents, share a perfect chemistry. You can believe they are a married couple since more than ten years in this film, and you can't do anything but appreciate the aristocratic Mrs Buy finally playing a bungler, mind-absent, but loving and a bit boor Italian mummy. You can't argue about Castellitto: the things his character says are sadly true in Italy nowadays. The beginner Alice Teghil is the ideal choice for the sweet Caterina: her innocent and deep eyes speak more than a thousand word. She's the only pure character in the whole film and you feel there's still justice in this world, when, in the closing scene, we see her singing happy and free in the National Academy of Santa Cecilia's choir. There're other remarkable performances: Federica Sbrenna (Daniela Germano), Carolina Iaquaniello (Margherita Rossi Chaillet), for example, and also Claudio Amendola (Daniela's father), Flavio Bucci and Galatea Ranzi (Margherita's parents). Behind the camera there's Paolo Virzì, one of the most sharp and smart directors in Italy.I lived a situation similar to Caterina's two years ago, and, because of this heaven-sent film, I understood a lot of things and finally resolved that annoying problem. That's way I owe my happiness and my inner peace to this film. Thanks, thanks, and still thanks, Caterina.

This excellent Italian comedy is very similar in plot to Mean Girls (who came out in about the same time). The difference is that this is a much more politicized film. Caterina is a shy teenager from a small town in Italy, who moves to Rome with her long-suffering mother and her teacher father, when he is assigned to a new job there. In her new school, she has to choose to what clique to belong: the children of the progressive intellectuals or the children of the rich industrialists. The left or the right. What this film says is that these people are not terribly different between themselves. They both hold a degree of fame and power in Italian society, and look down upon those who don't. The outstanding performance in the movie is that of Caterina's father, the teacher Giancarlo (Sergio Castellito), a hothead angry that others have gotten all the breaks in life, who rants against the rich and privileged but who would sell his soul in a second in order to join the establishment. He is a familiar type of malcontent in real life but one who is seldom shown in the movies. There is a silly subplot of Caterina falling in love with an Australian boy (What they did that for? To reach an international market?), but all in all, this is one of the best Italian movies of the last years.

I saw 'Caterina va in Città' in Sydney, where the audience had mixed reactions to the schoolboy who speaks Italian with what's apparently meant to be a Sydneysider accent. In general, I was impressed by the ensemble acting, but I felt that the best performance was given by Margherita Buy as the heroine's mother Agata. I was disappointed that Agata has so little to do with the main plot of the film.The symbolism is just a trifle heavy-handed in this movie. Remember those Hollywood war movies from World War Two, in which the bomber crew conveniently had one member of every (white) ethnic group? (And there was usually one rich guy and one guy from the slums.) Well, director/co-scriptwriter Paolo Virzi has got that gimmick here, Italian style. When 15-year-old Caterina's parents move house from a Tuscan seaside town to Rome and enrol her in a big-city school, the student body conveniently includes the full spectrum of Italy's national archetypes. For example, Daniela is wealthy, beautiful and popular, the daughter of an official in the right-wing government. Margherita is a left-wing 'revolutionary', the daughter of a famous intellectual. Of course, the film implies that Margherita is somehow better and more 'authentic' than Daniela.Because I found the political subplots of this movie to be deeply clichéd -- especially since Italy is in no position to lecture any other nation on the subject of politics -- I was pleased that the film's political content stays firmly secondary. The main story of this movie is, rightly, Caterina's uneasy and awkward progress through adolescence and into adulthood. It's no surprise to discover that being a teenage girl in modern Italy is difficult, but surely every adolescent -- male, female, rich, poor, in any century or culture -- has found adolescence to be a difficult time of transition. Except for some of its political comments, I found this to be a very honest and intelligent film, with characters I really cared about. I'll rate 'Caterina va in Città' 8 out of 10, and I look forward to more films from Paolo Virzi. Brava, Caterina!

I am a student in Australia, in year 9, 15 years old, studying Italian at LaSalle Catholic College Bankstown. I viewed this film as an excursion 3 days ago, and I loved it. I feel for Caterina because I guess I am a little naive in a way. She didn't realize that people were using her, she didn't realize that Margherita liked her in a different, more romantic way, she didn't know about a lot that went on in Rome. It was a very nice, dramatic and funny storyline, and i suppose it appeals to a large audience. I rated it 9/10. I took off 1 mark because I feel not enough was shown of Edward, the guy she loved, the guy from "down under", the guy who most Australians can identify with. He played a prime role in my eyes because he brought her life back on track when she had run away. A little more could have also been shown of Fabietto and Agata's relationship. This film was an excellent representation of the comparison between the posh side of Italy and the grateful and appreciative side of Italy