Made in Italy
For his featuring directing debut, James D’Arcy has bet on a lovely Italian landscape to set this drama/comedy of personal renewal for a young man, and his father. It’s a fairly good bet that you’ll see a lot of, if not all of, the twists and turns in this story coming- the actor’s screenplay is not one filled with original thinking. I would imagine many people will still enjoy it, however; the charm it has is infectious.
Jack (Micheál Richardson, son of the later Natasha Richardson and his co-star here, Liam Neeson) is running his in-law’s art gallery in London, and his wife feels like he is just spinning his wheels in life. They are in the middle of a divorce, and yet, he continues to act like things are normal. The in-laws are planning on selling the gallery, and Jack would like to buy it. To raise money, he goes to his father (Robert, Neeson’s character), and wants to convince him to sell their old family home in Italy. It’s gone into a state of disrepair, however, so there’s some work that will need to be done. Where, oh where, will this head, I wonder…
It’s hard not to be flippant about this story, because it’s hardly new territory. Jack might come to figure out some things about himself. Robert might figure out some things about himself. They might figure out things about each other. The question is whether D’Arcy, as a director, can make us feel anything about this material at all, especially when Jack unexpectedly meets a local restaurant owner (Valeria Bilello) as he’s trying to grapple with the enormity of the task of fixing up this house. Richardson and Neeson do a serviceable job of making us care. Neeson, in particular, brings an honesty to the character of Robert that makes us engaged in how he wrestles with his past, and how it has impacted his relationship with Jack, especially when he is faced with truths and pain he locked up at the house in Italy. The rest of the film feels as though it’s come out of a program designed to write stories of self-discovery; I almost wish the film had been just about Neeson’s character.
D’Arcy has a good eye for composition, and sure hand at directing actors. “Made in Italy” is very much a first feature film, and I wonder if there’s something personal in this story he wanted to tell. This is not a poorly-made film at all; it just lacks much in the way of a pulse. Or something meaningful to say that we haven’t seen many times before. He does get some of Neeson’s strongest, most personal work in ages coming out of his performance, though; that is enough of a reason to see it, if you’re a fan of the actor.
