Not of This World (1999) User Reviews (7)

The nun's story

[jotix100 · 8/10 · 12 July 2006]

Sister Caterina, the young nun at the center of this story, finds herself questioning whether to go ahead in making her permanent bows in a year's time. What prompts her to reconsider and examine her faith is an abandoned baby who has been found in a park in Milano by a man who, seeing the sister, decides to turn the just born boy to her. Caterina, in turn, does the right thing in bringing the young infant to a hospital where he will receive the attention he needs.

The sweater in which the baby was found is Sister Caterina's only clue as to the identity of the parent who has abandoned him. The search brings the nun to Ernesto's dry cleaning place. When she approaches him, he admits it's his sweater, but he knows he hasn't left the infant in the park. For a while, Ernesto toys with the idea the baby could be his son, the product of a relationship with Teresa, who worked in his laundry, but now she is gone and he doesn't know for sure.

Ernesto is a hypochondriac; at one point he believes he is having a heart attack. Sister Caterina finds him and takes him to the hospital. He confesses as perhaps being the father, but Caterina realizes he has nothing to do with the boy. In their search for the mother of Fausto, as sister Caterina has named the baby, brings Ernesto closer to the nun, who takes a new significance in his life. Caterina, in spite of her doubts about taking the permanent bows, comes around to realize her life is to be dedicated to others less fortunate people.

Giuseppe Piccioni, the director of the film, makes an interesting story by creating the complex character of Caterina. This is a woman who begins having doubts because suddenly she realizes she has strong maternal instincts toward the defenseless baby she helped rescue. At the same time, she gets closer to Ernesto, although there is never a hint of a romance with this man, but he also needs her, as he has come to depend on her to try to make something out of his life. Mr. Piccioni has done wonders with this movie that clearly embraces life and commitment, in the case of Caterine, to her questioning faith.

The best thing in the film is Margherita Buy. We had admired this actress through her movies as she always casts an aura of serenity and beauty in everything she does. Her take on sister Caterina strikes the right tone from the start. We see Ms. Buy struggling to make sense in the big decision to continue as a nun, leaving everything she loves behind in order to do good in a foreign land. Silvio Orlando is equally excellent in his portrayal of Ernesto, who also has to look at his life and where he is going when he is touched by a stranger, in this case, a nun. Both actors work effortlessly in making this film a great one.

The film works thanks to Giuseppe Piccioni's marvelous direction in a movie that will stay with the viewer for quite some time.

The best Margherita Buy for a delicate and profound movie.

[Skylab · 8/10 · 2 April 1999]

Sister Caterina is going to take the final vows. But she finds a newborn child, Fausto, in a public park. This event creates new questions for her, for Ernesto (who thinks to be Fausto's father) that Caterina contacts trying to find Fausto's mother. The life is often confined in roles, "uniforms", that help people to survey. When something strange happens, people must go outside the uniforms to find a higher level of passion, love and life. These profound thoughts are suggested by mean of a "light" movie.

Margherita Buy is the best nun I've ever seen at the cinema.

Warm, human, real -- all that is best about Italian film!!!

[mintonmedia · 10/10 · 6 May 2000]

Had I known beforehand that this was a film about a nun who finds a baby in a park, I probably would have avoided it like the plague. Yet, from this premise that promises only the worst kind of sentimentality came the best film I'd seen in years. There is sentiment, to be sure, but it is earned -- superbly so -- by the honesty and intelligence of the performances, script and direction.

This film lets us spend time with ordinary, unforgettable people facing the simple, terrible problems of everyday life, first alone, and then together. It shows us that even those who think they are "not of this world" are bound to it by the humanity we share. It will make you smile in recognition, laugh at our follies and, I dare say, sniffle a bit as well. You may well find yourself lusting for a life-affirming, earthy experience at the end and, like one of the main characters, tearing into a bar of chocolate.

One of the finest movies I've seen in a long while.

[mroman · 10/10 · 31 December 2000]

A quiet movie that makes you appreciate humanity. The characters are made very real, and you feel for their situation. It had me reflecting much on my own life and the people in it, where I was going, and such. Not sure how to describe how or why it moved me, but I suspect it was the combination of a) slow pacing, allowing you time to notice things in the lives portrayed, to draw your own conclusions, expectations, to identify with numerous little things that happen. b) a beautiful musical score c) fine acting d) fine cinematography e) numerous story threads, presented in a non-judgmental way, such as the novices struggling with the choice of nun-hood; the laundry-owner's aloof life; and the mother-daughter relationships. f) adequate suspense, in that you wanted to know how things would resolve Anyhow, am just very grateful for such movies being made.

Sensible

[camel-9 · 9/10 · 26 December 2000]

having missed the showtime for one of the blockbusters in the cinemaplex in this xmas season, we instead diverted to a small art-sy theather in the cultural district to see this film. After five minutes, I was already believing I was better off in the cinemaplex to watch action-packed fast moving images with special effects in surround-sound state-of-the-art stadium seating theaters, and was somewhat put off by the slow moving italian film images of a nun looking for meaning behind the find of an abandoned baby. But by the end of movie, we realized that this carefully structured and written work would have never been done in the United States. It was a moving and human touching story, in which the characters were real. If they told me that the dry cleaner workers and the nuns where not actors but actually real people, I would have believed it. It is hard to pack into 90 minutes of reel a story that looks real without having fast cuts, sound bytes, and artificiosities in verbalisms and acting, and thus transmorming a story from real to hyper-real. Spread in the movie story are still pictures of "functional" groups of people, the dry cleaner workers, the nuns, the hospital workers, the ice cream parlor workers, the janitors, the police squad. And they all contribute to give this move a special realistic bond. One important note: all the outdoor scenes are in Milan. This is unusual, as usually all outdoor scenes in Italian movies are in the Rome and surrouding area (just as Southern California is for the US).

Otherwordly, as in it doesn't get much better than this

[exttraspecial · 10/10 · 13 November 2018]

A newborn baby is abandoned in front of a hospital wrapped in a sweater. Some non-descript guy pretending to exercise while smoking a cig and running through a park shoves the baby into the arms of Sister Caterina (Margherita Buy) who lives in a convent. Silvio Orlando plays the part of Ernesto, a hypochondriac owner of a struggling dry cleaner business in Milano. The Sister is determined to find the baby's mother, a laundry ticket on the sweater leads her to Ernesto.

At first Ernesto pleads ignorance of the sweater's owner, but the sister's persistence finally gets to him and they begin the search for the baby's mother. Meanwhile, Sister Caterina develops a fondness for the baby (named Fausto by a judge) which is at odds with convent life and frowned upon by the Mother Superior.

The friendship of Caterina and Ernesto is complicated and wrought with frustration and ultimately unrequited love. Other characters (the dry cleaner employees, Caterina's mother, Fausto's mother & father, the nuns and lovely Marina-who drops blatant hints of her desire to hook up with Ernesto that he doesn't pick up on. Fool.) all figure into the story. I won't say how this all ends. Suffice it to say this movie will tug on your heart strings.

The cinemaphotography is artistic and direct, the depth of the film is in the story and the characters. Buy and Orlando are superb, their character quirks makes the film all the more interesting. I love this movie.

Out of this world - Complex feelings laid raw

[mcongedi · 9/10 · 25 June 2020]

This is a wonderful film directed by Giuseppe Piccioni and starring the superlative actors Margherita Buy and Silvio Orlando. A nun (Buy) finds herself in the care of an abandoned baby wrapped in a jumper with a laundry tag that leads her to laundry owner (Orlando). Thus events are set in motion which cause both the leads to re-examine their lives, their goals and their aspirations.

Rarely do films delve so deeply into the psyche of the characters but this is one film that manages to do it, largely due to a very, very well written script on which director Piccioni collaborated.

Both Margherita Buy and Silvio Orlando give restrained and well-balanced performances which are never maudlin, and which feel so real.

Another plus is the soundtrack by master pianist Ludovico Einaudi which complements the mood so beautifully.