A coming of age story about a 15-year-old provincial girl who moves to Rome and finds her new tony private school is a microcosm of the cultural and political divisions of Italian society When her parents, Giancarlo (Sergi... more »o Castellitto) and Agata (Margherita Buy), move from a seaside town in Tuscany to an ailing aunt's apartment in the big city, Caterina (Alice Teghil) is ready for something new. Dad, a teacher in a tech school, has undisguised social ambitions and is delighted to see a list of famous last names attending Caterina's new school. Her class is split between revolutionary no-globals and rich kids who parrot their parents' conservative ideas. Both sides try to bring the new girl into their sphere of influence. She's first drawn to Margherita (Carolina Iaquaniello), a mercurial hippie princess whose mom (Galatea Ranzi) is a politically active intellectual. This first phase of Caterina's social education ends when Margherita gets her drunk and tattoos her arm. Giancarlo arrives, intending to get Margherita's mother to find a publisher for his novel, which he has given her daughter to read. Abruptly switching from fawning to outraged, he insults everyone before dragging the vomiting Caterina home. Caterina soon falls in with the flighty Daniela (Federica Sbrenna) and her circle of rich, cell phone totting mall-rats. After making her over into an urban sophisticate, they introduce her to a quiet young aristocrat with a disapproving mother and to Daniela's father, a right-wing undersecretary (Claudio Amendola) in Berlosconni?s government. As her parent?s marriage disintegrates in the face of her father?s social frustrations, Catherina finds comfort in her extended family and hope for the future in a budding romance (and perhaps the prospect of emigration someday) with a boy from Australia. The film lays bare Italy?s great political divide and absence of middle ground, a situation some US viewers may recognize uncomfortably close to home.« less
"A good movie and since I just returned from a year in Italy, I can say that this film accurately portrays the style, language, and politics that define Roma. The subtitled translations are not that great, but if you don't speak Italian you would never notice and it doesn't contribute to anything being missed or lost within the plot or anything. I highly recommend this film"
Better than average movie
Wendy Schroeder | Englewood, Co United States | 08/14/2006
(4 out of 5 stars)
"I really enjoyed this film. Caterina is a country girl who moves to Rome with her parents. Her father is a teacher who has a grandiose vision of himself as a great writer (his work reads like a cheap paperback). Her mother is kind and pretty but a bit of an airhead. Caterina is trying to fit in at school. Does she belong with the Bohemians or with the rich socialites (think teenage Paris Hilton)?
It's a charming coming of age movie. I couldn't help but think that Italy has the same social and political divide as we do in America. I found it amusing some classmates called her a "Hillbilly". Back in Detroit in the '70s I knew a Sicilian who called himself an "Italian Hillbilly". I thought it was kind of funny but I bet he was called that as a kid. I think anyone who remembers being a teen will like this flick.
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Respectable italian moviemaking (will beat 75% of what comes
Nearabout Wednesday | around parrots a lot | 02/26/2009
(4 out of 5 stars)
"don't read if you don't want plot items revealed...other reviewers have branded this a coming of age story...true enough, but the sub plot is the father, a middle aged man slowly becoming estranged from his family and losing his grip in the workplace as well. a scene outside the cafe kinda characterizes the entire picture when caterina's new friend dismisses her with cab fare, on his mother's orders. alas moving to roma is not the same as living in a small town... filmed around rome,you'll recognize some of the places if you've been before."
Excellent italian comedy, with serious undertones
Andres C. Salama | Buenos Aires, Argentina | 01/31/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This excellent Italian comedy is very similar in plot to Mean Girls (who came out on theaters 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, but all in all, this is one of the best Italian movies of the last years."
COMING OF AGE-ITALIAN STYLE
Charles Blaine Fielding | SEATTLE, WA. USA | 09/09/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I had read a favorable review of this movie earlier this year in the N.Y. Times and was pleasantly surprised to find it on the shelf at our public library. What a pleasant surprise.
This is a coming-of-age film about a 13 year-old girl who moves from a small and remote Italian town to the ultra-sophisticated world of Rome. Think "Mean Girls", with a touch of Amy Heckerly's "Clueless". But "Catarina" rises above the usual teen farce by integrating Catarina and her classmates into the {corrupt}adult world around them. The fine editorial review above is an excellent summary of the story and I will not try to duplicte it.
As the Times' reviewer pointed out, "Catarina" shows how we now have a global youth culture. The girls of Roma are easily recognized as variants on American teens, with their own clothes, issues, etc.
Alice Tergil is superb as the sweet, but naive, newcomer. An excellent cast all-around.