Really Surprised!

hyped garbage

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

A delightful movie about the many aspects of love. The director knows comedy, doesn't talk down to his audience, and together with the screenwriter, delivers some insightful and hilarious moments. I found the movie dragged, or rather annoyed, only during one short stretch. But that was more than offset by the incredibly funny and talented Carlo Vendone as the physician in the final segment. I, and the entire full house of the audience at the St. Louis International Film Festival, was with this film every entertaining step of the way. The entire cast delivers believable performances, in a film that moves at a happy, involving pace. Laughter is contagious... see it with a group.

I really enjoyed the first novel. Jasmine Trinca is absolutely sexy and smart there. Although, I would not find Tomasa a perfect match to her, he did played very well. I am surprised that this movie has not received much of attention of critics and media. I am big fan of Jasmine after this movie. She is the best! Next novels were not so interesting for me, although I did find amusing one scene about pregnancy and the way everybody watched mother delivering a baby in a hospital.I would recommend watching Manuale Di Amore to everyone.

Considering that Italian comedy is kind of limited to 2 or 3 movies during the Christmas holidays,and that some of them are quite good (the ones with Leonardo Pieraccioni and Aldo,Giovanni & Giacomo)and some aren't (the Boldi & De Sica-movies),Manuale d'Amore was a bit of a surprise: released in March 2005,with a quite unknown director(Giovanni Veronesi,better known as a screenwriter,who was also behind Che Ne Sarà di Noi),a famous cast although only two actors were professional comedians (Carlo Verdone and Luciana Littizzetto),and a 4 episode-plot,reminiscent of classic Italian comedies,as well as Verdone's early films.The story is simple but interesting,as it shows 4 different phases of love: 1.Tommaso (Silvio Muccino) falls desperately in love with Giulia (Jasmine Trinca)and spends the rest of the episode trying to get her; 2.Marco (Sergio Rubini) and Barbara (Margherita Buy) are a married couple in the middle of a crisis,and the whole situation is made funnier by the fact that the two actors were married in real life; 3.Ornella (Luciana Littizzetto) finds out that her husband is unfaithful and swears revenge; 4.Goffredo (Carlo Verdone)is suddenly left by his wife and tries to go on with his life,which won't be easy.Veronesi tells the story in a very classic way (there are even characters commenting the events straight to camera),without using too much bad language (typical of the mediocre Christmas comedies)or any scenes of graphic nudity.The cast is excellent: Muccino is one step closer to the stardom he deserves,Trinca,Buy and Rubini should do more comedies,while Littizzetto should do more movies. The real surprise,however,is Verdone,whose mature portrayal of an abandoned husband is miles away from his early,sketch-originated characters.His episode is a perfect mix of comedy and drama,and he deserved every bit of the David di Donatello he won for his performance(Best Actor in a Supporting Role).So,if you want to watch a good Italian comedy,Manuale d'Amore is recommended.

The story is most banal and told us in stereotypical ways: falling in love, marriage, crises, betrayal. Giovanni Veronesi doesn't reach the goal of finding an interesting and original way of showing us something we've seen so much already in the history of the movies. The scene-structure is not clear for most part of the movie, and the feeling is that the actors are left mostly to their instincts, not doing a particular good and appealing job with them, therefore left undirected, and therefore badly directed, all of this on the basis of a very weak screenplay. We don't get hooked, we don't laugh, we just yawn and wait for it to be over so we can forget about this so called work of art (a very bad one!)