La pazza gioia (2016) Reviews

• Thrilling performances. Solid!

  palavitsinis2016-10-31

  I found this film by accident and did not regret a moment watching it. Depression is a maladies of our times. Of the modern society. As well as bipolar disorder, these are some illnesses that people frown upon or are reluctant to discuss. This movie depicts the effects of these diseases and shows more than one inconvenient truths. Balancing between the world of the ill and the real life, it shows how it is to live with a sickness like that and how little distance exists between these people and the ones that are considered healthy. The leading actors were breathtaking. Being able to act as a bipolar in such a way is not an easy task. This movie has lessons in store for everyone that is interested in seeing what these people go through. And as far as statistics go, you probably have some people in your midst that deal or have dealt with similar issues. This is not an easy movie. Don't get fooled by the "comedy" genre. It has some comic moments but it's mostly a punch in the stomach if you're up to the task of watching it.

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• Nice film with great performances

  rubenm2016-08-14

  When Beatrice, one of the lead characters of 'La Pazza Gioia', scrolls through the contacts in her iPhone, we see that she has included George Clooney. What's more, she has written his name in capitals. It's a small detail, but it's typical for Beatrice's psychological disorder: she believes wholeheartedly in her own fantasies and lies. What's more, she's so convincing, and her character is so overwhelming, that others start believing them, too. At first sight, the voluptuous and aristocratic Beatrice is the last person who would befriend Donatella. She is a skinny and fragile girl, obsessed with her son, who is taken away from her after she involved him in her own suicide attempt. But Beatrice and Donatella become close friends, and together they escape from the psychological institution where they are treated. The film shows how they get involved in a series of crazy adventures, and meet up with different people who represent parts of their past. But although their escapade seems to be hilarious and carefree, the desperate aspect of their behaviour slowly becomes clear. When Beatrice promises out of the blue to take Donatella to her son, who is adopted by foster parents, the story slowly transforms into a touching drama. The last scenes are very moving. The film shows wonderfully how Beatrice and Donatella are not merely 'nutcases', as most people see them, but persons who live in their own reality. The perspective is not only how the world sees them, but also how they see the world. Apart from the superb acting performances from both lead actresses, the movie is also worth viewing for the subtle mix between joyfulness and sadness. The mood changes constantly from extreme exhilaration to deep desperation.

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• Italian Cuckoos Nest

  billcr122018-06-17

  One of my top ten movies of all time is One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. It still holds up 48 years after its' release. Crazy Life is sort of a step child of Milos Forman's masterpiece. While not as good as Jack Nicholson's best film, it is one of my favorite foreign films of the last ten years. Donatella and Beatrice are a couple of emotionally unstable women who meet at a mental hospital. They click on a shared level of being outcasts from normal society. The misfits team up for a really wild adventure. The actresses are tremendous, with a screen chemistry as good as I have ever seen. The script is both sad and funny, with a completely unpredictable story which kept me guessing from beginning to end. One slight drawback is the rapid fire dialogue here. If you do not speak Italian; and I don't, be prepared to speed read for two hours. Even with that, I highly recommend Crazy Life.

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• The acting and writing really stand out here.

  MartinHafer2017-08-16

  Whenever I review a foreign language film, I fully realize many people won't bother watching the picture because it's not in English. This is a shame, as many of the better films I have seen have been in a variety of languages and with "Like Crazy", you'd be missing a very good movie. The story begins in a psychiatric institution in Italy. Beatrice (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) is a patient, though she won't admit this to anyone…even herself. In her distorted mind, she is a countess… and the old mansion used as a hospital was donated by her to treat these unfortunate people! So, while at times Beatrice looks and seems very normal, she is severely deluded and self-absorbed. When a new resident arrives, Beatrice decides to make Donatella (Micaela Ramazzotti) her own personal project. After all, she is a rich, benevolent lady and helping the unfortunates is her life! So how, exactly, does she 'help'? Yep…she orchestrates an escape and soon the oddly matched pair are out on a joy ride…complete with stolen car. At this point in the movie, Paolo Virzi (who wrote and directed the picture) could have chosen to make the film a kooky comedy, like "Crazy People" or "The Couch Trip"…which is what you might expect with a Hollywood film. Fortunately, "Like Crazy" does not go there but manages to be rather poignant as well as realistic. You learn more about Beatrice and Donatella and their lives outside the institution but there are no magic solutions to their problems. After all, they are indeed very ill and mental illness isn't particularly funny…and is often quite tragic. Now this is not to say that ultimately this is a depressing or tragic film…and it manages to say quite a bit while still being believable and compelling.

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• Two runaway psychiatric inmates recover their self respect.

  maurice_yacowar2017-02-10

  The original Italian title translates as The Crazy One, which initiates the first question: to which of the two runaway psychiatric institute inmates does the title refer? Is it the yapping name-dropping aristocratic blonde beauty Beatrice or the vulnerable punk with a past Donatella? As is common in the Cuckoo's Nest genre, the narrative reverses our expectations when we find characters outside the institution are at least as loony as those within. Here Beatrice's ex- husband lawyer and Donatella's mother match the heroines in eccentricity and perversity. At first reading the film sensibly treats the illnesses of depression and manic exhilaration with empathy. On that theme alone the film stands solid and humane. But it also operates on two broader levels. One is the celebration of a free individualism against restrictive conventions of behaviour. In their separate worlds both heroines violate what's expected of them. Beatrice insists on living large and free, snooping through forbidden files, playing doctor, luxuriating in her ex- husband's verboten estate, deluding herself that her ruinous pimp loves her. Donatella only wants to keep her baby son, or to have his other-familied father see him, or to give the baby a day of adventure outside The Home. Both women are charged with madness for their emotional needs. Their freedom threatens others. When Donatella meets her little son on the beach she is finally allowed to express herself. The boy's adoptive parents check their fears and let her frolic with him for a while. Their liberalism is quickly denoted by their second adoptive child, a little black girl. When Donatella and her son swim underwater together she can wash away their earlier submersion. Then in despair she tried to drown them together. With this new contentment Donatella on her own returns to the home to be cured. An institution is a dramatic setting for this theme. Its values are control, suppression of the wild and spontaneous, conformity. The home here is rather easy, given the cinematic tradition. There's no Nurse Ratchit and the physical restraint and electroshock are in outside institutions, not here. Indeed the happy ending has both women return for treatment instead of being dispatched to harsher alternatives. In the end, untrammelled individualism proves destructive. Social order requires restraint, which sometimes needs to be initiated from without if it's not working within. In the Italian context the film plays that tension out on the political level. Italians constantly face the electoral choice between liberty and repression, especially in the context of its Fascist past. The relatively gentle institution here represents a government of order that stops short of that historic extreme, but it is still a system of restraint. In this respect the film addresses the political tension beyond Italy, across Europe and into America. Broadly, today the repressive Right promotes the conformism of nationalism and white superiority, driving the modern experiment of liberalism to retreat.

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