TIFF08 REVIEW: Genova [A Summer in Genoa] [2009]

Rating: R | Runtime: 93 minutes
Release Date: March 27th, 2009 (UK)
Studio: Metrodome Distribution
Director(s): Michael Winterbottom
Writer(s): Laurence Coriat & Michael Winterbottom

My heart bleeds.

Michael Winterbottom is a director that never sticks to one genre and never compromises his vision. From the well-received music biopic 24 Hour Party People to the meta-comedy A Cock and Bull Story to the sexually graphic concert narrative 9 Songs to the story of Daniel Pearl’s murder in the Middle East via A Mighty Heart, he won’t shy from controversial subject matter.

That makes his new film Genova that much more interesting because it’s by all accounts a very safe and simple tale compared to the others. There really isn’t anything he’s trying to say here besides telling a story about a family dealing with the loss of their wife/mother. Joe, Mary, and Kelly all feel this death strongly and cope in different ways. Eventually moving to Italy, Joe hopes the change of scenery will help them move on. Sometimes, though, especially when dealing with a tragedy, it’s not that simple.

Colin Firth plays Joe with a wonderful sense of restraint. He’s saddened by the turn of events, but knows he must stay strong for his two daughters—especially Mary since she holds herself responsible for her mother’s death. Reconnecting with an old friend from college (Catherine Keener), he discovers a job opening teaching at a college in Genova, Italy. With this guide helping him along, he decides to take the girls in hopes a little European air will alleviate some of the pain to look towards the future.

The locale is an interesting: always seeming to be somewhat shady yet affluent at the same time. The beach is definitely a plus for the girls, but the long walks through strange neighborhoods without knowing the language proves intimidating to say the least.

Joe finds he isn’t quite sure what he wants. He knows Keener’s character is there for him and perhaps interested a romantically relationship, but he also meets a student who appears interested as well. This possibility of a young affair strikes him as exciting and, while beginning rather innocently, soon escalates to the point of going on a date while leaving his older daughter to watch her sister. It’s a dangerous prospect knowing what the audience does about the girls’ volatile relationship. Kelly isn’t one to correct Mary for her self-loathing about their mother’s death. She feels the only reason they’re here now is her fault.

Over the course of the story, Kelly (Willa Holland) descends into a circle of people who stay out late, do drugs, and party. Being made to move against her will, she decides to rebel a bit and finds a local boy to become her lover while pretty much being a selfish brat amongst her family of mourners. Rather than join them, Kelly feels she only needs to forget about the whole ordeal, have fun, and never think about it.

This detachment from the family doesn’t make life easier for Mary (a great performance by Perla Haney-Jardine) as she has no one to talk to. Her father is working and dating and her sister abandons her at piano lessons to continue her sexual escapades, threatening her to keep it a secret from their father. The only person Mary has is her deceased mother for whom she begins seeing as a ghost. She leads her around Genova, causing trouble and scares while also conveniently allowing for circumstances with the potential to mend all the broken fences.

It’s this fact that bothered me about the film. A very emotive tale of loss, coping, and redemption at its core throughout the first two thirds, its final act decides to tie all loose ends up as easily as possible. It sends young Mary on a journey with her dead mother, carefully orchestrated to make the other characters find her. So, the writing is on the wall. We know it’s a matter of time before Kelly’s new friends show they aren’t as great as she thinks. That the bond between Keener and Firth will strain. And that he’ll slowly drift away from his daughters by distracting himself from his own grief.

Some of the best scenes come when Firth enters Haney-Jardine’s room to console her after a nightmare or vision ends with her mother leaving again. It is heartbreaking to watch at times, but the way it all comes together subverts that power by showing how manufactured scripts can prove. I understand the desire for cyclical narratives—starting the film with a car crash and ending it with another—but stuff like that is so obvious that the artifice takes you out of the moment. The acting and characters are truly remarkable across the board, though, so it’s a shame the story couldn’t follow suit and allow for a profound conclusion rather than an easy one.