Very Cool!!!

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Colin Firth has made a pretty good career of losing his spouse in the movies. Perhaps no other actor does damp eyed resignation better. This time he's a college professor whose wife dies in a tragic accident leaving him with two daughters, one crippled by the knowledge that she caused the accident. The older one seems to be auditioning for the lead role in the remake of Lolita. Turns out the dead wife is the lucky one as she only has to appear as a ghost in a couple of more scenes in this pointless, incomprehensible, nihilistic, and uttering boring movie. Mom's also pretty angry about the funeral which looks more like your typical faculty party. No one seems very sad and the kids are all outside smoking pot. The rest of the movie consists of wistful sighs, a commercial for RyanAir, furtive sidelong glances, scooter rides accompanied by bad Euro Trash music and lots of cigarettes. Does the British Lottery not have better things to do with their money? Are there no war veterans who need prosthetic limbs?

Unquestionably one of the very worst movies I've ever seen. I must be candid though - I'm pretty quick at tapping the stop button on movies I consider junk. But the storyline got me in - the fact there was none!! I stuck it out thinking that at some stage something interesting was sure to happen - it didn't. (I'm still annoyed with myself that I wasted such a significant portion of my life to this movie!) After yet another boring irrelevant scene it went to the credits. I thought I must of missed something - I rewound - missed something? I hadn't. Nothing wrong with the acting - just bloody awful story. Like watching a normal family - BORING!!!

Superb acting, especially by Colin Firth and the younger daughter, but really, the entire cast was GREAT.Moving on to SOUND: atrocious. It's the type of sound editing where you've got the remote in your hand and the sound is up to 24 one second and down to 2 the next.Also: I HATE movies where the music and ambient sounds drown out the dialog.Camera work mostly good, but what was that in the church where the younger daughter takes off and Kathryn Keener looks out the door after her and the camera moves in for a split second close up? Abrupt.There are parts of this movie that shine, but the first half hour is atrocious. Amazing this script was produced.

I worked with Michael Winterbottom once on The Claim and did not like his directing style but I was crew, not talent so he had no impact on my job. However, I have watched a few of his films since then, and his style did not get any better from the other side of the lens. This film was very slow paced and I did not feel drawn into the story by the story , if you get my drift. The talent did a fine job with the script but it was a lacklustre script and a boring storyline. The film was called A Summer In Genoa when it came out on rental and was rented as it had Colin Firth in it, always a fine actor and well worth watching.I will careful check future films for Winterbottoms name and avoid them at all cost.