Valentina Lodovini Movies

A fresh-faced law student and a crafty card shark form a volatile friendship based on mutual treachery in Maximum Velocity director Daniele Vicari's adaptation of Gianrico Carofiglio's best-selling novel. At first, all fast friends Giorgio (Elio Germano) and Francesco (Michele Riondino) were interested in was playing a little poker and making some extra cash, but it didn't take long for greed to take hold and before long the pair had begun their fateful descent down the slippery slope of criminality. After realizing the profit they could make by rigging the game, the two con artists realized that in order to maintain their lavish lifestyle they would have to get creative. Before long, Giorgio and Francesco were dealing drugs and making a killing. But the further down the rabbit hole they ventured, the more detached Giorgio grew from his middle-class family and the more unpredictable his partner in crime became. By the time a sinister, more violent side of Francesco's personality began to emerge, it was far too late for turning back. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A young couple readying for the birth of their first child agree to let a team of documentary filmmakers follow them on their journey as they go from being a perfect couple to a perfect family. The only problem is that as the pregnancy progresses, their relationship falls apart. Now, the experience is decidedly bittersweet as they embrace the joy of a new baby and the pain of breaking up, all while the ever more intimate gaze of the filmmakers' lens captures their every moment. ~ Cammila Collar, Rovi

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 (accompanied by an aural assault on the soundtrack) 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. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi