Laura Morante Movies

In 1645, the French playwright and actor Jean-Baptiste Poquelin -- better known as Molière -- mysteriously disappeared for several weeks, and this lavish comedy drama imagines a scenario that could explain what may have happened to him. At this time, Molière (Romain Duris) is touring the French countryside with his traveling theater company, and he's yet to be recognized as one of the continent's great authors (or achieve significant financial success). Molière is put in jail after skipping out on some unpaid debts, but is freed after his fine is paid by two strangers. Molière discovers his benefactors are acting on behalf of Jourdain (Fabrice Luchini), a very wealthy man who has a beautiful wife, Elmire (Laura Morante) and two lovely daughters. However, Jourdain has fallen head over heels for Celimene (Ludivine Sagnier), a gorgeous widow, and he's written a short play in order to demonstrate his feelings for her. Jourdain needs someone to help him polish his script and serve as an acting coach, and he's recruited Molière for the job. Needing the money, Moliere accepts, but he poses as a man of the cloth, Monsieur Tartuffe, to keep his identity a secret. Molière soon realizes that Jourdain's talent exists only in the rich man's imagination, and that Jourdain already has a rival for Celimene's affections, the charming but duplicitous Dorante (Edouard Baer). Molière was written and directed by Laurent Tirard. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A fresh-faced orphan from the provinces labors away at the last old-fashioned café on Avenue Montaigne as the Paris theater elite prepare for the biggest night of the year in Jet Lag director Danièle Thompson's whirlwind comedy of intersecting lives. Jessica (Cécile De France) may have been orphaned at the tender age of four, but her doting grandmother (Suzanne Flon) did her best to bring the motherless girl up right. A one-time ladies' room attendant at The Ritz, Jessica's grandmother was a woman well known for her extraordinary taste. Upon arriving in Paris to work as a waitress at a modest café nestled between a renowned concert hall, a venerable theater, and a high-profile auction house, Jessica soon finds herself interacting with a curious cross section of the thriving entertainment industry. As rehearsals for the upcoming shows get under way and Jessica is assigned the task of delivering food to the hardworking actors and low-earning stagehands, she soon discovers that even the most famous of people are often forced to make difficult decisions in life.

Jean-François Lefort (Albert Dupontel) is a classical pianist whose devoted wife has him booked at venues across Europe for the next six years. As the free-spirited musician struggles to eschew the formality of his upcoming concert appearance, self-made businessman Jacques Grumberg (Claude Brasseur) takes time out from his May-December romance and his stressful medical treatment in order to auction off a collection that he has been building his entire life and reach out to his estranged intellectual son, Frédéric (Christopher Thompson). Meanwhile, back on the theater front, popular television actress Catherine Versen (Valérie Lemercier) prepares to star in a farcical play, a famous American film director (Sydney Pollack) begins auditioning actors for an upcoming film about Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and a cheerful concierge on the verge of retirement (Dani) enjoys her final stint rubbing elbows with the biggest and brightest stars in Paris. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

When the wife of a high-ranking government official begins experiencing chilling visions that are somehow tied to a series of murders around Paris, her fate becomes intricately tied with that of the two police officers investigating the gruesome crimes in this horror-flavored thriller from the producer of The Professional and starring Jean Reno. Anna Heymes' (Arly Jover) memory is failing, and her dreams are plagued by unspeakable images of murder. Meanwhile, in the Turkish district of Paris, upstanding police officer Nerteaux (Jocelyn Quivrin) and his questionably motivated partner, Schiffer (Reno), investigate the savage murder of three clandestine Turkish laborers. As the investigating officers uncover an important clue implicating the Turkish mafia in the crimes, Anna awakens to discover that her appearance has been drastically altered by a mysterious plastic surgeon. As the link between Anna and the Turkish murder victims slowly comes into focus, the truth about her nightmarish past sets into motion a terrifying sequence of events. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Gabriele Muccino's Ricordati di Me (Remember Me) is a drama about two generations in an Italian family. Carlo (Fabrizio Bentivoglio) and Giulia (Laura Morante) are a married couple who have each given up their aspirations in order to live an average life. Their 19-year-old son, Paolo (Silvio Muccino), is having trouble finding an identity, while their 18-year-old daughter, Valentina (Nicoletta Romanoff), has already figured out how to use sex to her advantage. The family goes through a crisis when Carlo begins having an affair, Giulia attempt to seduce the director of a local stage production she is in, and Valentina does what she does best to land an audition for the same production. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Actor John Malkovich made his directorial debut with this tense political thriller, set in an unnamed Latin American nation and based on a novel by Nicholas Shakespeare. Agustin Rejas (Javier Bardem) is a former lawyer who became a police detective as a more direct way of dealing with crime and justice. Rejas has been assigned to investigate a group of terrorists who are determined to up-end the current government through any means necessary, from revolting pranks (such as leaving dead animals, painted with revolutionary rhetoric, around the capitol building) to bombings and assassinations. Rejas knows little about the terrorists, and no one on the force is certain of the identity or whereabouts of the group's leader, who calls himself President Ezequiel. As Rejas learns more about Ezequiel and his group, they begin stepping up their actions, making his investigation all the more urgent. Meanwhile, Rejas is a man whose daughter is taking dance lessons from Yolanda (Laura Morante); as Rejas and Yolanda get to know one another, a romance begins to grow between them, but in time, Rejas begins to suspect that the woman he loves is working with the terrorists he's been trying to ferret out. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Following up on his innovative work Timecode, which featured four stories being told in real time simultaneously, Mike Figgis returns to a modified form of his technique in this film about the tourists, the prostitutes, the tour guides, a killer, and a film crew who frequent the Hungarian Palace Hotel in Venice, Italy. A corrupt Eastern European politician and his moll are visiting the city to complete a shady business deal while Sophie is a high-priced call girl who makes an office in one of the hotel's suites. The film crew is attempting to shoot a Dogma 95-style adaptation of John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi only to run into one problem after another. Magic is a professional assassin with a very odd kink -- he must have sex immediately after completing a job. Quintus, who abandoned his attempts to get fame and fortune as an actor, is a tour guide with an unusual secret. And then there is maid who not only has the skeleton key to the hotel, but also a habit of snooping. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Cristina Comencini follows up her critically acclaimed 1998 opus Marriage (a funny though sensitive look at marriage in modern life) with this star-crossed comedy. Mafioso Michele Verrio (Michele Placido) has both a wife (Angelica Ippolito) and a long-suffering mistress, Lunetta (Lunetta Savino). Years ago, Verrio's henchmen bombed the car of Lunetta's muckraking brother Sergio (Francesco Paolantoni) after one of his scoops painted a rather negative portrait of the aging mobster. The incident prompted Sergio to go into hiding up north, leaving behind his child Sabina (Eleonora Sergio) and his wife Mara (Laura Morante). Mara eventually got remarried to Emilio (Emilio Solfrizzi), a car salesman, while Sabina went off to study in an American university -- only to return pregnant and engaged to Verrio's son Giovanni (Marco Morandi). Soon the two families that were once sworn enemies now have to try to get along. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Lucio Gaudino directs this family drama about a pair of brothers grudgingly reunited after their parents are killed by Mafia extortionists. After learning of the murders, affluent yuppie Edo leaves his abode in northern Italy to visit his family's home in Sicily. There he and his resentful brother, wheelchair-bound Saro, argue, reminisce, and debate the pros and cons of living in a beautiful coastal area where Mafia executions are common. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide

Claudio Fragasso directed this Italian thriller in which a former French secret service agent (top Israeli male model Raz Degan) recruits newlyweds to become assassins. After Carla (Laura Morante), married to Domenico (Thomas Kretschmann), kills several people, neighbor Dario (TV-star Raoul Bova) recognizes her, taps the couple's phone, and secretly videotapes their crimes. When Dario's wife Luciana (Francesca Schiavo) helps him collect evidence on the killer couple, the excitement jolts their sex life up a few notches. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Much like Alcatraz, Santo Stefano is a fortress-like Mediterranean penitentiary closed by the Italian government in the mid-'60s. The prison, named for the small island where it's located in the Tyrrhenian Sea, provides the setting for the directorial debut of screenwriter Angelo Pasquini. Antonio (Andrea De Rosa), the pre-teen son of prison director Bruno D'Assisi (Claudio Bigagli), attends the prison school although his mother (Laura Morante) is back on the mainland. Antonio becomes friends with Nicola (Claudio Amendola), an inmate who has the trust of director D'Assisi. Campaigning in the Church and press for prison reform, D'Assisi attempts to upgrade the atmosphere in the prison by creating a sense of community and trust. However, escalating right-wing reactions build into a backlash against his methods. After a mainland visit, D'Assisi finds the evil Ardito (Antonio Petrocelli) and a brutal bunch of guards have replaced his more trusted guards. The character of D'Assisi is loosely based on the humane activities of the chief who headed the prison between 1952 and 1960. Shown at the 1997 Venice Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide

Two disparate Italian families battle it out on a remote island during summer vacation in this barbed social comedy that sharply comments on the yawning chasm created by ideological and political differences between liberal-but-narrow-minded intellectual elitists and ultra-conservative, ignorant masses. The story's battleground is set upon the island of Ventotene and on either side are adjacent cabins. In one stays the intellectually arrogant Sandro Molino. He brings with him his girl friend Cecilia, her baby, and her father. Cecilia is constantly insecure about her relationship with Sandro while papa Mauro, a failed thespian, fights his ever-encroaching depression. The Molino camp and its many followers spend their days playing music, sipping wine, smoking hashish, grooving on nature and engaging in endless conversations until the prominent Roman gun merchant Ruggero Mazzalupi and his boisterous family show up and spoil everything. The riotous Mazzalupis are as vulgar as the Molinos are tragically hip. The real conflict begins when Sandro threatens to turn Ruggero in for abusing a Senegalese servant. Chaos between the clans erupt, but amidst the cafuffle, two teens still manage to fall in love. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

What there is of a plot in this drama serves mainly as a vehicle for the exploration of character. In the story, Michel (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) is a recent widower. As the story opens, he and his friend Andre (Philippe Nahon) are sharing a drink on Christmas Eve. He takes a yellow scarf from a woman he knows (Laura Morante) and teasingly refuses to return it. Throughout the remainder of the film, the scarf reappears, as does the woman, until they wind up in bed together at the end of the film. Before that happens, Michel wanders around Paris, viewing the festivities with a jaundiced eye which serves to heighten the unattractiveness of those he observes. Later he has dinner with a group at Andre's house, and his poor opinion of human nature is amply supported by the events that occur then. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide