Since my family is 45 minutes away now, and my students dwindling over the Christmas season, it’s not unusual for me to watch one, sometimes two, movies a night. So I’m taking advantage of this opportunity to see movies I’ve always wanted to see, movies I’ve never heard of, and broadening my horizons by trying some new and interesting approaches.
So, I’ve also decided to review some of these movies – who knows, maybe you will find something interesting to watch as well.
I was unsure of this movie. The cover described it as a “Comedy” yet the description is about a young man who journey’s to Italy to find a famous writer, Weldon Parish, and discovers himself and love along the way.
The movie opens up with a very strict view of the modern world. A neat, bare, dismal in it’s beauty apartment and the perfect grooming of a young business man. His walk to work, a ride in a glistening elevator and the coldness of people surrounding him immediately struck me. Is this how we all look – going to work daily, functioning with as much creativeness and spontaneity of a robot? How would my life look to someone watching me from the outside? Would they think I was just the beginning of what would prove to be the most boring movie made by mankind?
The young man is an editor, and the publishing company he works for assigns him to a mandatory “vacation” in Italy in an effort to sign a great writer who has not written anything for 20 years. The difference between the small town in Italy and the cold bustling of London is incredibly marked and made me wish for a simple life, in a place where there is the smells of warm bread, the laughter of men and women filling the streets and the warm colors of a sunset with no electricity and headlights to block the view. How easy it would be to be creative in such a place – when surrounded by the magnificence of God’s creativity?
The movie had a serene, amusing and poignant setting. It was relaxing and heartwarming and ended all too quickly. Settle down for this one with a mug of hot tea, a blanket and a few pillows and prepare to be completely overwhelmed with the sheer beauty of the scenery and touched by the story of discovery being told.
