The movie

If the novel appears rather unitary, the film doesn’t always appear the same.
Virna Lisi plays the old Olga. The closing of the defensive wall that she pulled on not to be hurt, her leaning out from high, her pretending an affectionate gesture that is for the most part denied to her, is played very well by the actress. Olga’s character summarises a northern psychological type. Her daughter Ilaria is also well characterised. She’s played by Margherita Buy who underlines the resentments that are typical of a person who feels she has suffered a wound and knows that she hasn’t looked for it or deserved it.
The director Cristina Comencini doesn’t pull herself away in front of solution that could make even the most seasoned director nervous. The scenes that appears visibly out of the theme, because are typical of a love story, are the scenes of the falling in love of Olga, melancholy for a grey marriage.
So, it wouldn’t have been bad if Comencini had cut them, showing all the good qualities that “Va dove ti porta il cuore” contains . In fact, in the film, she missed the essential qualities of the novel, because she has preferred to show, with high fidelity, the long monologue letter of the novel.
Some episodes from the book, like the karma and soul references, have been eliminated, getting the story thinner but also sillier.
Another inconsistency between Tamaro’s story and Comencini’s film, is represented in the moment of Ilaria’s accident. In the film, in the accident scene, when the illegitimate daughter dies, there is also the little girl inside the car, but in the book this scene isn’t described. Cinema needs? Maybe, but she needed develop all the story. And if the lover Tcheky Karyo is a jewel of unfriendliness, if Massimo Ghini and Galatea Renzi seem to be sacrificed by the screenplay even if they’re quite good, the film ends making Virna Lisi hold the weight of the whole story on her shoulders and she confirms a great maturity.

Claudia Elefante
Francesca Florio
Erica Rega
Assunta Petrucci
Alessio Costabile