SLIFF 2010 Review: SUMMER IN GENOA

SUMMER IN GENOA starts out with a mother and her two daughters traveling down the highway playing a game guessing what color the next oncoming car will be. The younger daughter, Mary (Perla Haney-Jardin), is incorrect for every passing car but the older daughter, Kelly (Willa Holland), is correct every time. Mary then covers Kelly’s eyes to make sure that she is not peeking and Kelly continues to be correct. Mary becomes frustrated and covers the mother’s eyes while she is driving resulting in a deadly car crash. The film is about the different ways each member of this family deals with the mother’s death. The father, Joe (Colin Firth) decides to leave the confines of their home and country and take a teaching job in Genoa, Italy. Kelly resents her little sister for the changes in the family life; the mother’s death and the move. Mary retreats into a fantasy world in which she has encounters with her mother. The move seems on the surface to be a good one but Joe is unaware of Kelly’s behavior toward her sister and herself and Mary’s guilt over the mother’s death.

SUMMER IN GENOA is beautifully filmed. The vistas and streets of the old town are a good backdrop for the confusion and distraught that the family is experiencing. The tangled streets, the unsavory characters along the way, and the girls’ inability to take the same route home add to the sense of loss that they are experiencing; loss of home, mother, and life’s direction. The acting on the part of Perla Haney- Jardin and Willa Holland brought poignancy and angst to the film; light-hearted days spent at the beach but at night terrors in sleep.

Colin Firth is amazing in his ability to show the horror of the situation in which he finds himself and the drive to make everything seem okay, but also his denial of what actually is happening to himself and his daughters. When Joe’s longtime friend, Barbara (Catherine Keener), tries to talk to him about the need for the girls to have therapy, Joe becomes completely withdrawn and unwilling to discuss this with her. As far as he is concerned, they are just fine. It almost takes a tragedy for the family to pull together and rejoin forces to help each other survive. I enjoyed this film; it was very suspenseful and poignant. It had me on the edge of my seat worrying about the safety of the girls; one getting lost in a strange city and another careening down winding streets, drunk on the back of a motor scooter. Colin Firth, once again, does a stellar job acting in this film but then I haven’t seen a film of his that I didn’t like. I find him completely believable in the roles he chooses and never once think about him as the actor, as he becomes the character he is portraying.

SUMMER IN GENOA was nominated and won the Silver Seashell from the San Sebastian Film Festival 2008 for Best Director Michael Winterbottom. It also was nominated and won for Best Director Jury Prize at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

SUMMER IN GENOA will play during the 19th Annual Stella Artois St. Louis International Film Festival on Friday, November 19th at 9:15 pm and on Sunday, November 21st at 4:00 pm at the Plaza Frontenac Cinema.