Genova (2009)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

the audience applauded

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This movie is just different. I was quite confused after the movie and had first to decide if i like the movie or not. I totally agree with other persons, that there is not really a rising story or a climax. I also agree that there are several scenes when you expect something to happen and it didn't happen anything. But that's exactly the reason why the movie is so subtly powerful. The whole story is very authentic. Every person handles the situation different, in his own way. The relation between the two sisters is displayed in a great way.... when you think what happened in the beginning and that the bigger sister didn't mention anything about that the whole time. A very good movie in detail.

In some ways A Summer in Genoa was fairly like Grace is Gone which starred John Cusack as a father who together with his two children have to figure out life after the death of his wife. Here, Colin Firth plays the role of dad, who decided to uproot his family of daughters Mary (Perla Haney-Jardine) and Kelly (Willa Holland) from Chicago to Genoa in order to start their lives anew, which gives rise to plenty of touristy moments as they settle down in a new environment and get to learn a little bit about the culture of the Italians before they assimilate right in, not that we get to learn a lot anyway.Directed by Michael Winterbottom, this film presented what would be a one month snapshot of the lives of three characters each affected quite differently with the passing of a loved one. Made even more poignant is that one of them was directly responsible for the death in the family, in an opening scene that you are probably going to cringe with cinematic premonition that something untoward would happen, since there were plenty of visual and aural clues on how it would all eventually pan out. But the snapshot presented was really slight in nature, having its characters fall into stereotypes, while the narrative shifts gear into the morose and flatlines almost throughout its entire run time.Colin Firth could play Joe with his eyes closed, being the dad whose new stint in a school brings him attention in the form of female students, as well as a friend from the past (Catherine Keener) who had helped him and his family in their initial settling down, providing that potential romantic interest that didn't develop much. The most Joe had to do is to appease youngest daughter Mary, the baby of the family, who suffers from constant nightmares about that fateful night with her mom.Willa Holland as the teenage daughter Kelly expectedly falls into the rebellious phase as she lusts after the attention showered unto her from many hot blooded Italian men, with the usual flings you'd come to expect from a title like that. The only depth to her character comes from the very testy relationship formed with her younger sister, where in front of their father she plays the angel, but in his absence becomes the bully not pulling her weight in the discharge of her responsibilities.Perla Haney-Jardine though probably was the star of the show, stealing the thunder from everyone with her performance that requires to showcase a range of emotions, and by and large her character here may have resembled the little kid in Millions who possessed a vivid imagination. Hope Davis enjoyed limited screen time in the film, but her scenes opposite Hope Davis were probably the best in the storyline that required to tread upon the supernatural, though more Casper than creepy, personifying how one grasps onto treasured memories with the reluctance to let go.Don't expect any major breakthroughs or moments with deeper meanings, though it had one harrowing scene that reminded me of how horrible traffic in Italy could be, and their scooters that weave in and out of small lanes, where a map is probably useless since the streets have no signages. It certainly brought back some of my own wonderful experience in the country, that the most this film had done, is to rekindle that interest to go travelling and tour more Italian towns.

After his wife dies, Joe (Colin Firth) decides a change of scenery would be good for him and his two daughters, so he accepts a teaching job at the university in Genoa. The younger daughter is racked with guilt and sees visions of her mother, the teenage daughter rebels by chasing boys, while dad enjoys his job and his students.With a cinéma vérité style and plot, this film feels like a reality show. Dialogue is mumbled and often insignificant, emotions are muted, the hand-held camera is often shaky, and it all seems too ordinary to be interesting for an hour and a half. The children are often lost among the dark and winding alleyways of the city, building tension that, unfortunately, never pays off. The script (which annoyingly sometimes said they were there for a year, other times just there for the summer) goes on and on about their daily activities adjusting to a new city and that's realistic, but not, for me, necessarily entertaining.Firth is very good as the father, but we never get to know or understand him well. Only once does he mention his wife and his feelings about her aren't clear. He seems to get over her quickly enough, embracing the city and romancing a local. Willa Holland is the epitome of a self-centered and headstrong teen, but she's thoroughly unlikable. The youngest daughter is more sympathetic, but there was something lacking that kept me from caring about her.All in all, I enjoyed the scenery but the story lacked emotion and clarity and was dull for me.

Tragedy strikes and Joe (Colin Firth) whisks his two daughters off to Italy for "A Summer in Genoa". Not a fun-filled holiday but an attempt to rebuild their lives after the mother dies. The positive reviews refer to this as a film stripped down to the bare realities of life, I refer to it more as a film stripped down to nothing.Flat dialogue removes the life of the still living characters who have become nothing but embodiments of guilt and the aftermath of a tragedy. There is nothing but the element of loss to connect us to these characters, and I need more than that. An overwhelming soundtrack of sad and dramatic scores, Italian music and background noise prepare us for even more devastating events but quick cuts then always bring us back to the same space we were in before.This is an experienced filmmaker who knows that simple scenes with only a sleight of hand can tell us so much, but I believe that only works when there is more than nothing happening in the film. It's also a film with a great look for its low budget, but it does not show off the beauty of Genoa (or Genova in Italian).If you're looking for a small, raw film about loss, then "A Summer in Genoa" is actually good. But I want and need more than just examples of guilt and sadness in movies.