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Caterina in the Big City (2005)
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Reviews Counted: 36
Fresh: 32
Rotten:4
Average Rating: 7.4/10
Consensus: This witty movie succeeds as both a modest teen coming-of-age story and a satirical microcosm of Italy's political climate.
Runtime: 1 hr 56 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Theatrical Release:Jun 10, 2005 Limited
Synopsis: 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... 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 (Sergio 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 his old alma mater, where Caterina will also be going. 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. -- © Empire Pictures [More]
Starring: Sergio Castellitto, Margherita Buy, Alice Teghil, Carolina Iaquaniello
Starring: Sergio Castellitto, Margherita Buy, Alice Teghil, Carolina Iaquaniello, Galatea Ranzi, Claudio Amendola
Director: Paolo Verzi
Director: Paolo Verzi
Screenwriter: Francesco Bruni, Paolo Verzi
Studio: Empire Pictures
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Reviews for Caterina in the Big City
On the surface, Caterina in the Big City is like Mean Girls, Italian-style. But it's much more layered than that.
The Italian Caterina in the Big City is sloppy, but it's on to something.
Caterina in the City is a coming-of-age story, of course, but its adult characters are also well rendered.
Caterina faces challenges in this coming-of-age movie, but nothing earth-shattering or exceptional.
It's an adolescent-to-adult drama that never veers into maudlin or sugary territory. There's a realness on screen that translates to any culture.
Though Caterina is unusually well-acted and crafted for this kind of movie ... Giancarlo is the one character who makes the movie special.
Played in a manic, volcanic manner by Castellitto, Giancarlo is a constant source of humor and embarrassment.
...a funny, affecting, and intricate comedy that continually surprises and gets better as it goes along.
It's not a satire, it's a family drama whose social and political thoughts flicker like a neon sign on the fritz. Alas, sentimentality is the movie's pilot light.
Caterina in the Big City won't change your life, but it moves along spiffily and the young Teghil is adorable as she adventures gamely onward.
A lovely and thoughtful exploration of the end of childhood innocence.
The film uses its surprisingly sly humor to win over the audience and also manages to say quite a bit about the differences between the haves and have-nots of the world, yet without becoming too full of itself.
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