A Disappointing Continuation

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

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

A mediocre movie (and book) about the sorts of unexceptional people you would walk past in a suburban supermarket and never think of again.I normally find myself sharing similar views on movies to Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton, however, this movie is pure dulls-ville and I cannot understand how it got the attention it did.The main character of this movie is an uninteresting girl with no interests, no hobbies, no personality and a boring generic face. All of the characters in this film are like unconscious live stock; breathing, eating, and going through the basic motions of not being dead.Watching this movie was about as entertaining as staring at a potato. Reading the book required required more effort. It was more like chewing saw dust.

Looking for Alibrandi is an outstanding novel written by Melina Marchetta and published by Penguin Books in 1992. It is a story full of love and passion, hatred of foe, and tragic sadness. This novel is so excellent with its sensational ideas that in 2000 the novel was made into a hit movie starring Pia Miranda as Josephine Alibrandi.Seventeen-year-old Josephine Alibrandi is in her last year at St. Martha's, a wealthy Catholic secondary school for girls whose fathers treat them like princesses. Josephine feels that she doesn't fit in anywhere for the following reasons. She is an Italian whose grandmother moved out to Sydney when she got married. She is on a scholarship at St Martha's and is surrounded by rich snobbish girls who already have modeling careers. Josie has been called a bastard all her life due to the fact that she has never met her father. But for Josie this year, everything changes for the better, and for worse. This is the year that she will meet her father (Michael Andretti) for the first time in her life, but not in the way she had imagined. The year she finds out about her Nonna Katia's affair with an Australian man called Marcus Sandford. He is Josie's mum's real dad, because Nonna Katia's husband Francesco couldn't have children of his own. It also the year that Josie tries to make the man of her dreams fall in love with her. He goes to St Anthony's and is the son of a Member of Parliament, his name is John Barton, and in Josie's opinion he is the greatest debater who ever lived, popular and good looking. Josie and John are very good friends and hang out a lot. Josie thinks that John is perfect and wants to be part of his world, but when John suicides she realizes that not even he belonged in his world.It takes Josie a long time to get over John, but soon starts going out with a boy called Jacob Coote. Jacob is school captain of Cook High, and Josie and Jacob are always on and off together throughout the novel. Not only does Josie have all of this happening but she also has her HS (the Higher School Certificate) to worry about, because she wants to study law at University. However, once HS is over, Josephine realizes that everything is going to be fine when she looks back on the year and knows who she is. Josephine is Nonna Katia's Granddaughter, and Michael and Christina's daughter. She is not an Italian and not an Australian, but an individual. It's not a bad effort, even if the first half of Looking for Alibrandi demonstrates a good crackling pace and the second, a rather flattened pace. But that is generalizing - it's quite a bumping ride, as we follow the domestic life of Italian born Josephine, who is undertaking her final level of high school. The guy she wants is just out of her reach, then lately, way out of her reach, and the guy who wants her is keen for the feelings to be reciprocated. The mixture of two possible love interests gives Looking for Alibrandi a slight edge on other squishy little heartthrob dramas, and it gets a nod of appreciation from me for not flat lining its characters into their social stereotypes. Some of the last few monologues lost my interest completely, but that's a minor quibble in the scheme of things. A lot of the film is quite enjoyable. It just doesn't quite handle the complexities of its self-narration in a method that can sustain itself as an engrossing picture. Instead, it's a bumpy ride, which in a way reflects the life of its teenage protagonist.

I haven't actually seen the movie but I just finished the book because we had to read it for English and soon we have to do an assignment. I was wondering if anyone knew why Lee and Ivy were excluded from the film.. ? I think that was a stupid idea because (well not so much Lee) but Ivy was a key character in the book- especially when John died and her and Josie finally became.. well not friends.. but they accepted each other. Or does this still happen with the Ivy/Carly character? For the book i give 10 out of 10. It was great. It didn't have a perfect ending (which would have been Josie and Jacob staying together and Michael and Christina getting back together) like most movies these days which, surprisingly, made me like it even more. I mean it did have a happy ending but it also left you guessing about the whole Josie-Jacob and Christina-Michael relationships and we didn't find out a lot of things about Josie. Looking forward to watching the movie on the weekend, hope it lives up to my expectations :D

the movie is very good. it has a very good plot for a teenager and it deals with the same things that teenagers go through at this stage in thir life. Pia Miranda plays the part of Josie very good and that is good. all in all it is a good movie and i reccomend it to any person over ythe age of 13