The Family Friend ( L' Amico di famiglia )

The Family Friend (DVD) (*)

Out of Stock

Original Title: L' Amico di famiglia
Screened, competed or awarded at:
Cannes Film Festival
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
English ( Subtitles )
Italian ( Dolby Digital 5.1 )

Product Origin/Format:
United Kingdom ( PAL/Region 2 )

Running Time:
96 min

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen

Special Features:
Behind the scenes
Cast/Crew Interview(s)
Deleted Scenes
Featurette
Filmographies
Interactive Menu
Making Of
Photo Gallery
Scene Access
Trailer(s)

Movie filmed in 2006 and produced in:
France ( France, Benelux )
Italy ( Italy, Greece )

Directed By:
Paolo Sorrentino

Written By:
Paolo Sorrentino

Actors:
Luigi Angelillo ..... Saverio
Fabrizio Bentivoglio ..... Gino
Liliana Bernacciano ..... Sister
Clara Bindi ..... Geremia's mother
Giovanni Caruso ..... Father
Laura Chiatti ..... Rosalba De Luca
Giorgio Colangeli ..... Massa
Emilio De Marchi ..... Chef
Luisa De Santis ..... Silvia
Roberta Fiorentini ..... Moglie di Saverio
Marco Giallini ..... Attanasio
Lorenzo Gioielli ..... Montanaro
Francesco Grittani ..... Gemello Contessa
Nicola Grittani ..... Gemello Contessa
Fabio Grossi ..... Cognato di Saverio
Valentina Lodovini ..... Giacomo
Geremia Longobardo ..... Belana
Alina Nadelea ..... Cassiera
Lucia Ragni ..... Geremia De Geremei
Giacomo Rizzo ..... Teasuro (as Elias Schilton)
Elia Schilton ..... Tiziana Senatore
Barbara Scoppa ..... Bingo grandmother's grandson
Lorenzo Sorrentino ..... Bingo grandmother
Barbara Valmorin

Synopsis:

In writer/director Paolo Sorrentino's second feature, The Family Friend (L'Amico di Famiglia), Giacomo Rizzo stars as Geremia de Geremei, a sixtysomething tailor who lives with his mother in a disgusting and decrepit flat. Though wealthy from the money that he has culled via loan-sharking, Geremia is a thoroughly miserable wretch, driven into the throes of destruction by his own incredible selfishness and his obsessive infatuation with a beautiful local girl, Rosalba (Laura Chiatta), whom he meets when asked to assist with her wedding. Geremia agrees, but takes the bride off alone and pressures her into sex, little realizing that he's sowing the seeds of his own downfall. Meanwhile, a bidet supplier attempts to goad Geremia into giving him a massive loan - an amount that Geremia could never possibly fork over. Throughout the film, Sorrentino packs in numerous surrealistic touches, from the sight of a nun buried up to her neck in sand to a grotesque glimpse of Rizzo with a potato poultice around his head to the jarring sight of Geremia's village, built by Mussolini on an Italian swampland. In the process, Sorrentino manages to create his own distinct world and thoroughly unforgettable characters. He also pulls off an incredibly difficult feat, by enabling the audience to care about a markedly unpleasant central figure.

Geremia, an aging tailor/money lender, is a repulsive, mean, stingy man who lives alone in his shabby house with his scornful, bedridden mother. He has a morbid, obsessive relationship with money and he uses it to insinuate himself into other people's affairs, pretending to be the 'family friend'. One day he is asked by a man to lend him money for the wedding of Rosalba, his daughter. Geremia falls in love at first sight with the bewitching creature and and soon indulges in a 'beauty and the beast' relationship...

Geremia, a sixty year old man, earns his living as a moneylender. His face is just as unpleasant as his character. He, on the other hand, has the impression that he is fair and socially useful. He also thinks that he can save families to whom he lends money and interfere in their lives, like a 'friend of the family.'

This product was added to our catalog on Tuesday 13 May, 2008.

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