LA NOSTRA VITA (Daniele Luchetti). 97 minutes. Subtitled. Opens Friday (April 1) at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. See listing Rating: NNN
Sometimes a writer can fall so deeply in love with his characters that he just can’t let anything too bad happen to them.
That’s the weakness in writer/director Daniele Luchetti’s La Nostra Vita. Though the premise promises deep conflicts, they fail to materialize in any meaningful way.
Claudio’s family is one of those too-good-to-be-true clans who kiss each other a lot and have beautiful family dinners by the sea.
But Claudio’s involved in the shadier side of the construction business, working with illegals and allowing construction shortcuts to endanger his workers. When a watchman dies on a poorly protected site, Claudio hides the body and doesn’t report the death.
He can live with that until he experiences his own tragedy, whereupon he resolves to better himself. But soon, he’s in financial trouble with the wrong people.
At times, La Nostra Vita is just a bit too delicate. It abandons some of its heavier themes – immigrant workers and racism, for example – so we can get back to that lovely family, especially Claudio’s two young boys.
But Elio Germano, who shared the acting prize with Javier Bardem at the 2010 Cannes Festival, is riveting in the lead. He’s heartless on the construction site but super-sensitive with his children, and rides an emotional roller coaster with exquisite abandon.
