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Primo Amore (First Love) (2004)

tomatometer

63

Average Rating: 6.3/10
Critic Reviews: 8
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 3

No consensus yet.

audience

64

liked it
Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 371

My Rating

Movie Info

An artist's strange obsessions take a grim toll on the woman he's fascinated with in this drama from Italy. Vittorio (Vitaliano Trevisan) is a jewelry designer who is set up on a blind date with Sonia (Michela Cescon), a attractive woman whose figure is slightly zaftig but well proportioned. Over the course of their date, Vittorio, an obsessive artist who doesn't do well in contact with others, tells Sonia, who is close to few people besides her brother, that he would be more interested in her

Aug 16, 2005

Strand Releasing

All Critics (20) | Top Critics (8) | Fresh (10) | Rotten (9) | DVD (1)

An elegantly told tale of obsession.

April 28, 2005 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | Comment
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It feels like a sketch for a larger work that would go beyond the well-worn insights of diet literature.

April 8, 2005 Full Review Source: New York Daily News | Comment
New York Daily News
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While engaging, pic eventually betrays itself as having a trivial attitude to its chosen subject.

April 7, 2005 Full Review Source: Variety | Comment
Variety
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The scenario is ludicrous, yet it's filmed and performed in such a way that it creates unbearable tension.

April 6, 2005 Full Review Source: Newark Star-Ledger | Comment
Newark Star-Ledger
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[A] wonderfully quirky love story.

April 6, 2005 Comment
New York Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Set in northern Italy and in the darkest recesses of a woman's heart, Primo Amore is a horror movie about desire and the toxic pursuit of perfection.

April 4, 2005 Full Review Source: New York Times | Comment
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

As lovely to watch as it is painful to contemplate.

February 22, 2007 Full Review Source: Film Journal International | Comment
Film Journal International

Perhaps it's appropriate that a tale about the avoidance of food should be so unappetizing, but that doesn't make it any more enjoyable to watch.

May 21, 2005 Full Review Source: One Guy's Opinion | Comment
One Guy's Opinion

This is not a great date movie, unless you know your partner will let you have popcorn AND candy and not make you suffer for it later.

May 13, 2005 Full Review Source: TheMovieChicks.com | Comment

Primo Amore tunnels deeply enough into its characters' psyches to reach classic tragedy levels.

April 29, 2005 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Daily News | Comment
Los Angeles Daily News

...never gets enough beneath the surface to justify [Vittorio's] eventual transformation into something out of a horror movie.

April 28, 2005 Comment

Could do with a bit more plot: It doesn't resolve so much as collapse in utter desolation.

April 28, 2005 Full Review Source: L.A. Weekly | Comment
L.A. Weekly

Connecting the tenuous expository scenes are hard-hitting moments as Sonia continues to starve herself, and Vittorio offers rewards and punishments.

April 8, 2005 Full Review Source: Film-Forward.com | Comment
Film-Forward.com

The atmosphere is once again black, creepy and unsettlingly elegant, lending this twisted tale of psychological dominance and submission a patina of anxiety and dread.

April 1, 2005 Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | Comment
TV Guide's Movie Guide

An engrossing Italian psychodrama about a driven man's obsession with a warped vision of beauty and a woman's sad subservience to his efforts to make her over.

March 29, 2005 Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice | Comment
Spirituality and Practice

Too claustrophobic and writ small for my taste.

March 26, 2005 Full Review Source: ReelTalk Movie Reviews | Comment
ReelTalk Movie Reviews

Primo Amore is as moody as Matteo Garrone's previous feature, The Embalmer, from which it seems to have pilfered much of its metaphoric import.

March 23, 2005 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Slant Magazine
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Primo Amore (First Love)

Well, catching up on my ratings...

February 28, 2007
charliesoo
Charles Anselmo

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Foreign Titles

  • First Love (Primo Amore) (DE)
  • First Love (Primo Amore) (UK)
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