Let's be realistic.

A Disappointing Continuation

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

This movie is one of the most beautiful ones I've ever seen. Of course it helps that one of my all-time favorite actors stars in it - Emile Hirsch. This movie is heartbreaking, not a very easy watching time. I usually don't like sad movies, but this one is a must see. It stays with me. It is about so many things - a great love story, loss, ability (or inability rather) to overcome the loss. The choices that people make, how they impact their lives and the lives of others. Inescapable horrors of war, what trauma it leaves behind. This is a beautiful tribute to what happened in former Yugoslavia. But for me it's the love story that's the most appealing, played beautifully by Emile and Penelope Cruz. Not a fairy-tale love, but a mature love with all its hardships, that is nevertheless as fresh after 10 years of marriage as it was in the beginning. Really shows what real love is, when people care about each other so much, and then you can look back on some of the "loves" you've had and understand how far it was from love, actually. I can't say enough to praise this move, buy it, you will not be disappointed. Or and a music is beautiful, too, I wish I could buy the soundtrack....

This movie moved me so much that I had to get up and write this review. As Bosnian and Herzegovinian, I think that this story represents life and its details in Bosnia and Bosnian people before and post war. Details are saying much more than big things. Storyline is great and shows us how destiny can play with us humans. Also, it shows us how there is bad and good people and it doesn't matter who they are and what they believe in. It shows us how love can be really complicated and how people can sacrifice their life for other people. It shows us how system works and that we can't do anything to change it but we still can be humans. I haven't blink in 2 hours and 9 minutes of a movie. Actors couldn't been better. Adnan Hasković did his best and I loved it. I have no other words for this movie! 10/10

Margaret Mazzantini's very popular novel 'Venuto Al Mundo' (English translation 'brought into the world') has been transformed into a screenplay by the author assisted by the director (her husband) Sergio Castellitto, the film in English is now called TWICE BORN. It is complex story, beautifully sculpted with interlocking flashbacks that cover a 30 year period, photographed with great skill by Gianfilippo Corticelli, and a cast that makes this carefully integrated story of varying timeframes work splendidly. Much of the film's beauty is in the complexity of the manner in which the story develops and revealing too much of that story would spoil the experience for new viewers. Very basically the story relates a mother who brings her teenage son to Sarajevo, where his father died in the Bosnian conflict years ago. But more needs to be added.Italian professor Gemma (Penélope Cruz) visits Sarajevo with her son, Pietro (Pietro Castellitto, son of the writer and director). The two of them had escaped the city sixteen years ago while the boy's father, photographer Diego (Emile Hirsch) remained behind and later died during the Bosnian War. As she tries to repair her relationship with Pietro, Gemma is forced by revelations to face loss, the cost of war and the redemptive power of love. She re-acquaints with her dear friend Gojco (Adnan Haskovic) and together they relive the horrifying experiences of the war in Sarajevo, Gemma's attempt to provide her beloved Diego with a son (she is sterile), the eventual plan to have Diego use musician gypsy-type Aska (Saadet Aksoy) as a surrogate for the couples much desired child, and the consequences that plan takes on, leading to a series of identity crises that the now older Gemma must face with her teenaged son Pietro. The story is structured on alternate scenes from the trip taken in present in Bosnia by Gemma and her son and flashbacks from the two time periods (of the first encounter and the war), a technique that at times is difficult to follow but that definitely enhances the tension of the story.The cast is extraordinary: Penelope Cruz is dazzling, Emile Hirsch gives his most sensitive performance of his career, and Adnan Haskovic, Saadet Aksoy and Luca da Filippo (as Gemma's father) are outstanding. This is a difficult film in message but a profoundly moving drama. Highly Recommended. In English, Italian, and Bosnian. Grady Harp

Amazing acting from Penelope Cruz, she shows the true feelings of being a mother in an ironic sense. A woman's desire for motherhood has been well illustrated! Her facial expressions throughout the movie are emotionally penetrating and make you think about this movie for quite a while. The movie has a perfect story-line. The shifting between present and past is done is professional way so you would connect the events without loosing the line.Watching this movie is like a heart-rending ride, but cinematography and acting are rewarding. The background music faultlessly matches all episodes of the movie. In one word, it's a well-directed and well-acted Italian movie.