Laura Morante Movies
Italian actress Laura Morante began her onscreen career in earnest at the beginning of the 1980s and worked steadily on the small and big screen from that point forward. She first gained fame in her own country, and soon built a reputation throughout Europe and the world. By the beginning of the 21st century, she worked steadily in international fare directed by such luminaries as Mike Figgis, Alain Resnais, and the directorial debut of John Malkovich (The Dancer Upstairs). ~ Perry Seibert, 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
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
- Starring:
- Cécile De France, Valérie Lemercier, (more)
- 2007
An unusually wise twelve year old boy attempts to save his mother's failing love life by setting her up with his handsome music teacher in director Claudio Antonioni's entry into the 2007 Montreal World Film Festival. Raul is a precocious adolescent who lives with his mother Monica - a singer in an eccentric orchestra called Orfeo that was founded by Monica's father. Lately, Monica's love life is in shambles, and this fact hasn't gone unnoticed by Raul. In attending his mother's performances, Raul concludes that she has a bad habit of pursuing relationships with the wrong kind of men. Convinced that his mother could be happy if she only found a mate who would properly care for her, Raul does his best to play matchmaker by introducing her to his music teacher Medri. Later, when the relationship takes an unexpected turn, Raul learns a valuable lesson in love that will no doubt remain with him well into adulthood. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laura Morante, Antonio Catania, (more)
- 1983
The comedic touches in Bianca and its setting at the "Marilyn Monroe High School" whose faculty need the services of the school's clinical psychologist, are at odds with the somber theme of a schizophrenic math teacher and a series of murders. That cinematic split personality leaves the film in limbo. The math teacher Michele (Nanni Moretti, also the director) is clearly neurotic, tries to "straighten out" the lives of his friends whether they like it or not, and is torn between his powerful attraction to the French teacher Bianca (Laura Morante) and his terror of intimacy -- between his need for a normal family life and his neuroses. When people start disappearing at the school, Michele becomes the number one suspect in the police investigation -- not a long stretch given his behavior. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nanni Moretti, Laura Morante, (more)
- 1982
In this rich, complex drama, the threat of terrorism serves as a backdrop to an examination of dysfunctional family relationships. Fausto Rossi portrays neglected teenager Emilio, whose father Dario (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a university professor, introduces him to his student, Giulia (Laura Morante) and her lover, Sandro (Vanni Corbellini). Emilio loves photography, and sets about taking pictures of the pair, soon coming to believe that Giulia and his father are lovers. Because Dario and his son are respectful of each other's privacy to a fault, Emilio can't ask, so he starts to spy. When he finds Sandro dead in the street one day, the apparent victim of a Red Brigade terrorist shooting, Emilio decides to keep an even closer eye on his father. It is never completely confirmed whether Dario and Giulia were really having an affair or whether Dario was involved in terrorism, because these issues are not necessarily director Gianni Amelio's concern. Amelio is concerned with perception, and in this fascinating film he examines his young protagonist's multi-faceted interpretations of an elusive truth, revealing that such a thing may not even exist. This is a powerful, absorbing film for thoughtful viewers in search of a challenge. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Louis Trintignant, Laura Morante, (more)
- 1998
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
- Starring:
- Raoul Bova, Francesca Schiavo, (more)
- 1989
An art restorer and (of neccessity) a bit of a historian, Eric (Tcheky Karyo) has been asked to come to a very spooky mansion to restore what looks to be a painting by a hideously deformed, mentally deranged artist who is only now becoming popular, years after his death. As he restores the painting, he begins to have strange flashbacks, as if he were the painter himself. Meanwhile, he is developing a relationship with the painting's lovely owner (Laura Morante). The painting is a picture of the girl's grandmother, and as the restoration progresses, both he and the girl begin to reenact the stormy relationship between the painter and his subject, as if they were possessed. One interesting feature of this film is that the dialogue alternates between Spanish and French. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laura Morante, Tchéky Karyo, (more)
- 1987
In this English-dubbed version of an Italian sci-fi film, a group of aliens lands on the planet in spirit form and take over the bodies of the recently dead. Trouble begins when a toddler tells his dad that he sees his deceased mother walking around every day. When the father investigates, he sees her too, and it soon becomes evident that there's a kind of epidemic of revived bodies going on. However, the aliens are not malevolent, and when their new bodies are gathered into one area by the worried authorities, they give them up. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tomas Milian, Laura Morante, (more)
- 1994
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
- Starring:
- Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, Laura Morante, (more)
- 1996
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
- 2000
A woman finds herself wondering if the support of her friends is helping or hindering her progress as a writer in this comedy-drama from Italy. Mara (Laura Morante) is an actress in her late thirties who has broken up with her boyfriend, a film producer (Vanni Corbellini), just as she's trying to complete a screenplay for a film festival, with her deadline only a week away. As Mara tries to find the right tone for her story, she finds herself inundated with visits from her friends, many of whom have problems of their own -- chatty Monica (Monica Scattini), newlywed Tazi (Naike Rivelli), and stable Very (Maddalena Crippa). Before long, the stories of their lives find their way into Mara's project. Film was the directorial debut from Laura Betti, who is well known as an actress in her native Italy. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laura Morante, Monica Scattini, (more)
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
- Starring:
- Rhys Ifans, Saffron Burrows, (more)
- 1988
This unusual biographical drama explores a period in the life of Nobel Prize-winning Italian nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi, (1901-1954) who contributed to the U.S.'s Manhattan Project (which developed the nuclear bomb) after developing the first working nuclear reactor at the University of Chicago in 1942. As a celebrated professor at Rome University in the 1930's Ferm (Ennio Fantastichini) attracted many brilliant students. One of them was the highly gifted and very unstable young mathematitian Ettore Maiorana (Andrea Prodan). Ettore, estranged from his abusive family, was more or less adopted by Fermi and his wife, until Fermi unwittingly betrayed him by admitting to Ettore's mother that he was staying with him. At that point, Ettore, whose mathematical skills far exceeded Fermi's and which had contributed to his development of nuclear physics, began his swift descent into some sort of paranoid state. He began camping out in his family's abandoned estate and eventually disappeared from sight. To this day, no one knows whether he killed himself, was murdered, or successfully changed identities. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andrea Prodan, Ennio Fantastichini, (more)
- 1983
As the discovery of an ancient map leads to the archaeological search for a long-lost sculptor's studio, the outcome hardly seems as though it will be victorious for anyone, right from the beginning. Two Italian art forgers are in competition with an American dealer to lay claim to the ancient site and its treasures, yet the sparse dialogue, sensitive cinematography, and interest in human nature tend to undermine the impact of any action or drama in this film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Chatel, Laura Morante, (more)
- 1995
This gentle Italian children's drama is set in 1943 and tells the true tale of Mathilde, a 13-year-old girl who meets Italy's King just before the US Army invaded Rome. During that fateful summer Mathilde and Beatrice, her mother, head out to the country estate of her grandfather, the Count. Though Mathilde's father, a sailor, died many years before, she has never fully accepted this and hopes he will come back. The Count's home is a flurry of activity as the whole house prepares for the wedding of Maria, a very pregnant maid, and Tonio; unfortunately, the wedding is abruptly canceled when Italy's royal leaders and what's left of the government show up. All of them are fleeing the country, abandoning their own people, before the Germans take over completely. To protect the servants, the Count has them all locked in the attic, forcing Mathilde and Beatrice to act as hostesses. Beatrice finds renewed love with one of the entourage, the handsome Major Ferri, the man who could be Mathilde's real father. Mathilde doesn't know this and the thought of this man with her mother is torture. Later, she speaks with the cowardly King who proves to be more of a tragic figure than one worthy of contempt. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1993
In this somewhat literary exploration of the meaning of romance, loosely based on the works of Henry James, five modern-day couples gather at a country estate to mark the anniversary of their long friendship. Their romantic maneuverings, past and present, are too complex to summarize here. However, it is clear that they love to talk about love, and will do so endlessly, given the slightest opportunity. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laura Morante, Christophe Malavoy, (more)
- 1984
Ostensibly about the sudden disappearance of a businessman and the subsequent behavior of his wife Elena (Helen Surgere), his son Robert (Tcheky Karyo), and his accountant (Jean Bouise), this allegorical film is really a weighty statement on the nature of Swiss society. After her husband has disappeared, Elena takes over his business, but instead of nurturing it along she does just the opposite: she trashes it, step by step. Meanwhile, Robert asks Alice (Laura Morante), perhaps his father's lover, to help him look for his father and ends up losing his job with a Zurich orchestra because he can no longer cope. The accountant, in turn, is overwhelmed by the mother's actions, the disappearance of the father, and the son's emotional and psychological collapse. If director (Alain Klarer) is saying that there are serious problems at all levels of Swiss society, he is saying it too slowly, too didactically, and too abstrusely to entertain an average audience. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hélène Surgère, Tchéky Karyo, (more)
- 1999
- NR
The veneer of a happy marriage disguises an ugly secret in this hard-hitting drama from Italy. Anita and Michele (Laura Morante and Luca Zingaretti) are celebrating the tenth anniversary of their wedding. At a dinner party in which the couple's friends and family are helping to mark this joyous occasion, Anita decides its time to get a few things off her chest. It quickly becomes clear that their marriage is not all it appears to be. The mood turns ugly and then argumentative, finally exploding with a shocking act of violence. Shot primarily in close-ups that mirror the tension of the story, L'anniversario (aka The Anniversary) is marked by powerful performances from Laura Morante and Luca Zingaretti. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laura Morante, Luca Zingaretti, (more)
- 1990
Except for the millionaire film producer, who undoubtedly only gets what he deserves, in this bedroom comedy almost everyone else on a luxury cruise liner headed for Mykonos seems to be having a good time with someone new. Doria (Jeanne Moreau) is a famed but aging opera singer whose career is necessarily drawing to a close: she is the top-billed entertainer for the voyage. Olga (Désirée Nosbusch) is the film producer's latest nubile discovery, Eric (Daniel Mesguich) is a journalist with a way with words and a weird new wife, and Andreas (Anthony Delon) is a handsome young man who is "available." He's quite available, actually, since he's a gigolo, but he finds himself quite passionate about his newest client. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jeanne Moreau, Jacqueline Maillan, (more)
- 1998
Scripter Alvaro del Amo and director Vicente Aranda adapted this Spanish film from Fernando G. Delgado's prize-winning novel. The story follows the psychosexual experiments of upper-middle-class consultant Begona (Laura Morante). Japanese businessmen arrive in Madrid to test a palm-size video gadget called "The Owl," and Begona uses it as both a confessional and a method of capturing her curves on tape. She accepts the challenge of biker Elio (Jose Corando) to go into a rough section of Madrid and let herself get gang-raped, but a more respectable life also beckons on other fronts. Shown at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Laura Morante, Jose Coronado, (more)
- 1981
- PG
After his son disappears, an Italian cheese manufacturer is threatened by political terrorists who will supposedly kill the son if he does not pay a large ransom. Unsure if they really have his son and if the son is still alive, he has to decide if he should or should not sell his business to afford the sum. ~ Kristie Hassen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Ugo Tognazzi, Anouk Aimée, (more)
- 1987
This uneven drama concerns the efforts of an aspiring filmmaker to include an unwilling female in his production. Paul (Jean-Louis Trintignant) finds difficulty deciding on a location for his film and angrily throws out his script. Jean (Jacob Berger) is the film student who is sent by Paul to track down Dara (Laura Morante) and recruit her for the feature. All three end up in Brooklyn, where Dara's father believes Paul and Jean are only interested in having sex with his daughter. A must for fans of director Alain Tanner. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean-Louis Trintignant, Laura Morante, (more)
