I'm afraid I join the line of people, admittedly quite short, reading the other reviews, who found this movie a waste of my DVD-rental money. Yes, there was tension in wondering if anything would happen to the children whilst wandering around Genoa and, yes, I liked the way in which Michael Winterbottom portrayed the narrow alleyways of that city in the manner of Nicholas Roeg portraying Venice in "Don't Look Now", but that was about it. Unlike other reviewers on IMDb who found it a fine exploration of reaction to grief, I didn't get that feeling from Colin Firth as Joe, nor from his elder daughter Kelly, only from younger daughter Mary. I did hope that her visions of her mother might lead somewhere but, alas, they didn't. Kelly did explode at one point at Mary about how the latter had messed up Kelly's life for the role Mary had played in the death of their mother but by then, it was too late. Perhaps the allusion to "Don't look now" led me to expect something to happen, but nothing ever does. In that respect it joins "Lost in translation" in the list of lauded movies where nothing happens. It stands on a rung above movies where you wonder why well-known actors got involved in the project (To pay the children's'/grandchildrens' school fees?) but this movie is not that much further up the ladder.
"Is that it?" is what my wife and I said to each other as the credits rolled and that is my summary of this movie.
"Is that it?" is what my wife and I said to each other as the credits rolled and that is my summary of this movie.