Genova Reviews

A Film with strong echoes of Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now. Both of these films share the theme of family moving to a Italy for a new start after a loss of one of their family members. They both also uses the architechture and locations to create a mood of suspensene unease, but where Nicolas Roeg succeeded with his 70's cult-calssic, Michael Winterbottom fails quite badly. Genova is a film that just do not know where to go or what to be. Sense of dread is there, but it feels like it is only there for leading us for a wrong tracks. This is not a thriller, it is more of a story about family in the state of a emergency and Winterbottom do not allow us even to get close to these characters. End result feels just cold and distant.

After the traumatic loss of their mother, the family of three move to Italy to escape their depression. The film is full of emotion as the family tries to cope with their new lives in Italy and sometimes a lot of tension is brought out. The straightforward story is decent and and the quality of performances are quite good. Despite the simplicity of the plot and story, the film still sustains substance and the value of moving on in life.

Michael Winterbottom in Genova showed us all his skills, except one... knowing how to end the movie! He is a director of such integrity that leaves me puzzled how could he finish a movie like that after giving us details such as awkwardness of hugging somebody at a wake while holding a plate of food, the momentary sigh of frustration a parent gives when woken by a crying child before they leap out of bed to provide comfort and a little kiss of a teacher and student where everything seems wrong... At least Mary (Perla Haney-Jardine) and Kelly (Willa Holland) looked natural and they were the perfect casting choice.

Maybe Winterbottom is one of the greatest living directors but Genova is unfinished business! At the end the life goes on but dissaponted crowd in the theatre is a good sign that something is wrong!

If you want action, complex plot and driving narrative with plenty of twists and turns, then maybe, you have to forget this film.

Co-written by director Winterbottom, the facts of this story are fairly straightforward. Widower Joe (Firth), an English academic living in America, loses his wife, Marrianne (Davis), in a car accident. After months of bereavement he sees a chance for some renewal in a teaching contract in Genova, Italy, and takes his daughters Kelly (Holland) and Mary (Haney-Jardine) with him. Here he is shown the ropes by Barbara (Keener), an old university friend who is sweet to him, though he only has eyes for Rosa (Romeo), a student.

In Genova, daughter Kelly rebels and stays out late partying while younger sister Mary deals with her grief wandering the streets, with sadness and constant nightmares about her mother's death. Joe tries to keep what's left of his family together as he rediscovers life and love again in an exotic setting-- Genova, a northern Italian port city that is steeped in history and stunningly beautiful.

With its architectural splendours, the city is itself a wonderful setting. And the performances are solid and nuanced. Colin Firth is an adept actor, if somewhat understated, and both Haney-Jardine and Holland also give performances as his daughters.

The film resonates with emotional truth and is compelling despite the apparent lack of action. This may lead some to ask: so what's it all about? Life, I guess, as simple as that.

A family experiencing tremendous grief and guilt who spend the summer in Genoa, Italy, while the father teaches. Each attempt at normalcy or moving on with their lives feels forced, which it is under these kinds of circumstances. Only in small bits does the devastation come to light. Loved the filming technique and the acting was wonderful.

While it should be something new it's very much not- it always feels like it but never offers anything to support that- it's very annoying.

Nothing is covered here- there's no development on any of the things that it alludes to, it's like the first half hour of a good film spread out into one, unbearably incomplete film. Either something happened in the editing room or someone just gave up when they were writing it. It's all style but no substance and the style doesn't even fit the little substance that's there. It's strictly typical yet a total mess.

The performances are strong and it feels like everyone involved wants to go further- there's more to this film, but where is it? It should be more than average but there's nothing here that you can't predict, nothing new on show. You might say it's dull but I'd disagree there, it's intriguing with it's promises and occasional unease but it disappoints on both of those grounds by the end.

It's a bad film that has everything it needs to be good- doesn't get more frustrating than that.

A beautiful movie about a mournful family. Colin Firth is definitely extraordinary.

"Genova" sebuah kota yang diibaratkan sebagai obat untuk trauma mereka bertiga. Berusaha melupakan hal pahit, tapi tidak berusaha menghilangkan kenangan manis. Banyak yang terjadi di kota tersebut yang pada akhirnya mampu mengubah hidup mereka.

Great low budget drama, touching, realistic.

"Genova" grievous feelings after loss is expressed vaguely, but observable through the suspicious atmosphere and culture of the city.

Der brilliante Brite hat sich still und heimlich in unsere Herzen geschlichen!!!!!!!!!!!

An awful tedious film - it should have been shot

i really like this movie.. i got more out of it the 2nd time round though

Very good film. Sad, but ultimately uplifting. I didn't think it dragged, as some commentators have suggested. Genoa looks fabulous. The Italian tourist board should be pleased with this film.

An interesting movie about the story of the relationship of a father and his daughters just after his wife had died in a car accident. It is funny to see some issues of cultural and new family roles adjustment in a new country. Very good performances, but i feel the story kind of weak...

Kind of a disappointment. Not really a feel-good film, a good portrait of grief - makes Italy look gritty & third-world, and somehow gives you an intense feeling of foreboding & doom throughout the whole film.

This is the story of a British man and his 2 American daughters. They move to Italy in an attempt to cope with the death of the girls' mother, a death which the youngest child is directly responsible for.

I enjoyed this film. I felt that it showed the family's problems in a realistic way; not only their grief, but also the father's struggle to care for 2 girls on his own, his tentative steps into new relationships, the youngest child's guilt, the older daughter's resentment of her sister and her own sexual awakening, and the whole family's attempts to ultimately move on and be happy.

Recommended :)

Genova - what a predictable load of emotional swill!
This director has ADHD. His editing is SO fragmented.Will someone please strap him in a chair and tell him to sit still.
Dad and youngest daughter battle dreadful words and cliches.
Finally a 'B' quality, first year film school project. Don't let this writer and director near a film production every again.

Drawn to the wealth of four star reviews and the description printed on the box I felt utterly had after enduring the tedium of this film.... Whilst trying to be worthy and cinema verite this movie misses the whole point of the genre- er suspense? Tension? Structure...? 40 minutes in and still not a whiff of any of the above- and yes the performances are good but the premise is so paper thin and undeveloped it had me checking the time every five minutes. TTTTEEEEEEDDDDDIIIIOOOOUUUUSSSSS.

Although at times the viewer is left wondered whether this indeed is a feature film or just an advert for the Liguria/Genova/Italy tourism board, it is just about deep enough to keep the hold until the end.

The beautiful scenery and the back drop offered by the city of Genova in the summer is matched by strong performances by Colin Firth, Hope Davies and Willa Holland. Surprisingly, it is the direction of Michael Winterbottom that fails to make the most of it. Genova looks beautiful as a movie, but it does so despite Winterbottom, not thanks to him.

Grief is personal, no two people experience it the same. Even if they are grieving for the same person. Nowhere is this more clear than in the way the three main characters in Genova look for acceptance and continuation. One (Kelly, the eldest daughter, played by Holland) looks for acceptance and love from her peers, the other (the dad, Firth) looks to recapture his youth, while a third (the youngest daughter, Davies) is gutted by grief and guilt and reinvents the dead person in a desperate effort to use her to feel better.

Some have described this as a supernatural movie. They miss the movie's point completely. It is not the supernatural that makes an appearance here, there are no ghosts on the streets of Genova. It is the psyche that creates the imagery, the human brain which animates the apparitions.

To Winterbottom's (only) credit, he finds a clever allegory in the narrow streets of Genova. They are notoriously tapered and hard to navigate ? one easily loses their way trying to get from A to B. Just as the two girls keep getting lost on the narrow streets of Genova, they get lost in their feelings as they explore a way out of their pain. For one of them, their mum still roams the backwaters of their mind, just as she appears on the streets of the city.

Genova is worth watching for the journey. Do not expect to arrive anywhere, as Winterbottom does not offer a conclusion. Sit back and enjoy the scenery. It works even if you haven't lost anybody recently. Who knows, it might prepare you for it.