Washington Post by Desson Thomson
Its long-winded denouement, in which Grazia runs away rather than be sent to an institution, doesn't bring the story full circle. It just extends it.
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Italy, France · 2002
Rated PG-13 · 1h 35m
Director Emanuele Crialese
Starring Valeria Golino, Vincenzo Amato, Francesco Casisa, Veronica D'Agostino
Genre Drama
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Everyone on the island of Lampedusa agrees: Free-spirited Grazia, wife to fisherman Pietro and mother of three, needs help — the institutional kind. To avoid being sent to a facility, Grazia runs away, leaving her family behind and living alone in a cave by the sea.
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
Its long-winded denouement, in which Grazia runs away rather than be sent to an institution, doesn't bring the story full circle. It just extends it.
The movie's pleasures draw on old-fashioned Italian neo-realist simplicity.
The film's generous spirit, disarming mixture of beauty and brutality, and gentle, insistent sweep make it easy to surrender to it anyway.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
For all Golino's comeliness, she's upstaged by the windy beauty of the landscape, and by Crialese's attention -- in an Italian neorealist way -- to the routines of daily life in an insular, traditional culture.
Portland Oregonian by Marc Mohan
The authenticity of its setting and its actors make this effort worth a look.
San Francisco Chronicle by Mick LaSalle
On its own terms, the movie succeeds. Like a fable, its meanings are unspecific but haunting.
As a whole, the film is perhaps a bit too gentle and meandering, but it's jammed full of superb moments.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
Not since "Y Tu Mamá También" has a movie so palpably captured the down-to-earth, flesh-and-blood reality of high-spirited people living their lives without self-consciousness.
Washington Post by Stephen Hunter
It's slight but in a haunting way, like a half-remembered dream.
Has a sexy cast and is gorgeous to watch -- but it takes more than that to make a movie worth seeking out.
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