After seeing Lamerica by the same director, I was hoping to see a much better film. It is the story of two Sicilian brothers who go to Turin, in northern Italy, in the early 60's. Their condition is miserable, poverty is rampant, prejudice against the southerners is high, but the older brother, motivated by great love and undying faith in his younger brother, is determined to send him to school and works under unbearable conditions to support him and see that he becomes a teacher. The younger one, however, is not particularly fond of school and resents his brother's attention and expectations. The acting is simply awful, consisting mostly of heavy breathing when the emotions run high. The younger brother displays one or two expressions throughout the movie. The plot is underdeveloped, showing disconnected events in chronological order. The characters are underdeveloped: there is no explanation for the unexpected role reversal that takes place in the second half of the film. I suppose the movie wants to show how the big, industrial city, (portrayed as constantly dark, rainy and cold, although it is not so in reality) corrupts the simple, good hearted Sicilians, but it does not do a good job of it. At one point, while the movie is focusing on the younger one, the older brother suddenly becomes a powerful Mafia boss Why? No explanation. He later leaves the good-hearted prostitute he was living with (and whose child he was supporting) to marry the daughter of a wealthy "Torinese", an act symbolic of his total moral degradation. In the course of his criminal dealings we see him kill someone, and we later find out that the younger brother went to prison for his crime. What happened? We are not told. I could not find anything redeeming in the film. A great disappointment!
Review of The Way We Laughed
