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Movie Review: VERMIGLIO (2024)

The nuptials are sumptuous to behold

Chicken on the menu for Rachele Potrich.
Chicken on the menu for Rachele Potrich.

VERMIGLIO (2024) Maura Delpero. Writer: Maura Delpero / Photographer: Mikhail Krichman (1.85:1) / Design: Pirra & Vito Giuseppe Zito / Music: Matteo Franceschini / Starring: Tommaso Ragno, Roberta Rovelli, Giuseppe De Domenico, Martina Scrinzi, Orietta Notari, Carlotta Gamba, Santiago Fondevila Sancet, Rachele Potrich, Anna Thaler, Patrick Gardner, Enrico Panizza, Luis Thaler, Simone Bendetti, and Sara Serraiocco | Distributor: Sideshow and Janus Films | Running Time: 119 min  

Once upon a wartime Christmas Eve in the titular Italian border village — also the birthplace of writer/director Maura Delpero’s father — a deserter arose. Fortunately for the uncommunicative Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), in these secluded whereabouts, the lines between chickenheartedness and heroics are often blurred. (Overheard at the local tavern: “If only we were all cowards. There'd be no more wars.”) Pietro’s first stop is at the home of Cesare Graziadei (Tommaso Ragno), the village pedagogue and stickler for Catholic morality, whose family alone is large enough to fill a schoolroom. Cesare may be the smartest guy in a 100 mile radius, but even his teenage daughter Ada (Rachele Potrich) realizes that teachers who only know how to school little kids have no idea what to do once adulthood sets in. 

One glance at Pietro from the eldest Graziadei daughter and the race to the altar was on. Their first kiss — Lucia (Martina Scrinzi) went up the hill to fetch a pail of water only to find ambiguous dreamboy Pietro waiting at the well – is a bit too movie-calculated for these surroundings. Still, the nuptials are sumptuous to behold: the views afforded guests attending Lucia and Pietro’s wedding make The Sound of Music look like a 7-11 parking lot. It’s doubtful that adolescent children in these surroundings would be conversant in bigamy, but at least it's something to move the plot along. Unintentional irony kicks in when the church choir sings of “perpetual light.” Alas, sunshine has no place in Delpero’s scheme of overcast sameness. What she does shine a light on is a strong cast of females, led by a grandmother quick to rightfully assign blame on a war that “turned men into idiots.”

Rating: ***


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Chicken on the menu for Rachele Potrich.
Chicken on the menu for Rachele Potrich.

VERMIGLIO (2024) Maura Delpero. Writer: Maura Delpero / Photographer: Mikhail Krichman (1.85:1) / Design: Pirra & Vito Giuseppe Zito / Music: Matteo Franceschini / Starring: Tommaso Ragno, Roberta Rovelli, Giuseppe De Domenico, Martina Scrinzi, Orietta Notari, Carlotta Gamba, Santiago Fondevila Sancet, Rachele Potrich, Anna Thaler, Patrick Gardner, Enrico Panizza, Luis Thaler, Simone Bendetti, and Sara Serraiocco | Distributor: Sideshow and Janus Films | Running Time: 119 min  

Once upon a wartime Christmas Eve in the titular Italian border village — also the birthplace of writer/director Maura Delpero’s father — a deserter arose. Fortunately for the uncommunicative Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), in these secluded whereabouts, the lines between chickenheartedness and heroics are often blurred. (Overheard at the local tavern: “If only we were all cowards. There'd be no more wars.”) Pietro’s first stop is at the home of Cesare Graziadei (Tommaso Ragno), the village pedagogue and stickler for Catholic morality, whose family alone is large enough to fill a schoolroom. Cesare may be the smartest guy in a 100 mile radius, but even his teenage daughter Ada (Rachele Potrich) realizes that teachers who only know how to school little kids have no idea what to do once adulthood sets in. 

One glance at Pietro from the eldest Graziadei daughter and the race to the altar was on. Their first kiss — Lucia (Martina Scrinzi) went up the hill to fetch a pail of water only to find ambiguous dreamboy Pietro waiting at the well – is a bit too movie-calculated for these surroundings. Still, the nuptials are sumptuous to behold: the views afforded guests attending Lucia and Pietro’s wedding make The Sound of Music look like a 7-11 parking lot. It’s doubtful that adolescent children in these surroundings would be conversant in bigamy, but at least it's something to move the plot along. Unintentional irony kicks in when the church choir sings of “perpetual light.” Alas, sunshine has no place in Delpero’s scheme of overcast sameness. What she does shine a light on is a strong cast of females, led by a grandmother quick to rightfully assign blame on a war that “turned men into idiots.”

Rating: ***


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