In "Don't Tell," Sabina(Giovanna Mezzogiorno) dubs television shows into Italian for a living and lives with her boyfriend, Franco(Alessio Boni), a theatre actor who has just been offered a plum role in a TV medical drama. In her spare time, she visits her blind friend, Emilia(Stefania Rocca), who has a long-simmering
crush on her. As Sabina is in the process of transferring her parents' remains while considering starting a family, she has a nightmare indicating that she may have been sexually abused as a child. She decides to visit her brother, Daniele(Luigi Lo Cascio), a professor at the University of Virginia, who she has not seen in several years, to get some answers... "Don't Tell" is a mildly interesting movie but there is not much drama beyond a couple of obvious revelations. It does not help that the subplots take center stage for a good deal of the film, either. And it is strange that the most memorable part of the film is the architecture.(Even Emilia's grotto is cool.) The movie is about family, extended and otherwise, and how through miscommunication, incidents from the past are avoided until they become toxic. But secrets never stay buried forever, do they? So, looking back at one's formative years, there may be a certain amount of pain which leads to anxiety when contemplating a possible future of a family of one's own.
July 27, 2007
Top Critic
