INDEPENDENT FILM FOR INDEPENDENT MINDS

The film opens in 1971 with a beauty pageant for mothers at a summer fair. Effervescent Anna (Micaela Ramazzotti) wins hands down as her jealous husband, young daughter and son look on. Little brooding Bruno is afraid of the wrath his mother’s victory will spark in his father, and rightfully so. The story then flashes forward to today. Bruno (played as an adult by Valerio Mastandrea) is stoned out of his mind in a park and has forgotten his own birthday dinner and his girlfriend Sandra (Fabrizia Sacchi). Soon thereafter, Bruno’s sister Valeria (Claudia Pandolfi) virtually kidnaps him to visit their mother (played in the present by Stefania Sandrelli) who is dying of cancer in a hospice. The film jumps back and forth between Bruno’s childhood and the present day, as we come to understand what made the emotionally hermetic Bruno abandon his family.