So this is another Alice Rohrwacher (The Wonders, Happy as Lazzaro) movie, her first feature film. When I wrote up The Wonders, I mentioned that I thought it was good, but not as good as the later Happy as Lazzaro. Well, this one follows the trend by not being as good as her later movies but still being pretty decent.

The story here is about a 13-year-old girl whose family has recently moved back to Italy from Switzerland, and it’s like 98% about her upcoming Confirmation in the Church (but also about like her relationship with her mom, and her bratty older sister and so forth).

It’s a familiar take: The Church is corrupt, cruel, and banal in its embrace of “buddy Jesus” type pop songs and what-not; the girl wants a more authentic form of spirituality, and is torn between her societal/familial obligation to the Church and her desire to be true to her own semi-unformed beliefs. There’s not a lot surprising there, but within the limits of its predictability, it’s well-crafted and shows the talent that Rohrwacher will develop more in her later movies.

(There’s also an almost-more-interesting subplot happening with the priest of the local church, who clearly wants to transfer to a bigger parish with better career prospects, but for whom the movie is a tragedy in that he pretty much fucks everything up in front of the bishop, and at the end, he is resigned to being stuck in this podunk backwater parish forever.)

I wouldn’t disrecommend this, exactly; but really Happy as Lazzaro is brilliant, and you should definitely see that instead, if you haven’t.