![The Family Friend [DVD] [2007]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/512vYJpW3AL.jpg)
Italian family drama about a rotten loan shark horning his way into a young couple's wedding. This critically beloved third film by Italian director Paolo Sorrentino is said by many to be his best work to date. Geremia De Geremei (Giacomo Rizzo) is sleazy and thoroughly disagreeable old loan shark who lives with his bedridden harridan of a mum. Friendless and socially inept, he horns in on a young couple whose parents are forced to borrow from him to pay for their nuptials. The loan is made conditional upon the proud parents inviting this elderly sleaze to their child's big day, which they agree to only with great reluctance. De Geremei's interest in the pretty young bride Rosalba (Laura Chiatti) becomes decidedly unhealthy but he may have met his match in this scathing-tongued bride-to-be.
T**H
With friends like these . . .
This is a mostly remarkable, haunting and incredibly unsettling film. It is beautifully observed, equally beautifully shot and directed, enough to leave one with a sinking, sickly feeling, and a longing for more. The director's take on the male lead in the extra features is quite revealing, especially because at first glance the performance seems all but perfect. In parts "Beauty and the Beast", with a dash of "Blue Velvet" and just a hint of "Gomorrah", but all the director's own. The director, Paolo Sorrentino really understands something about Italy, yesterday and today.
B**O
Twist and turns
Sorrentino is True to form And mantas a your attention a very good movie with his twist and turns...
T**N
Funny, thoughtfull and throughly enjoyable
Funny and fascinating when considering all the character and the development arc's the Director puts them through. Almost a Buddhist message built into it around humiliation and who it really impacts.
X**O
Five Stars
Great product,will use again
T**R
Weird Or What!
This has to be one off the weirdest films I've ever seen - and it is great! With one of the most disgusting main characters ever to appear in films it intriques and delights (in a disgusting and disturbing way) from start to finish. It's very funny, very sad, and very clever - the twist fits the film perfectly. The blend of real and surreal is brilliantly done. It's not a film everyone gets - we've tried it on friends and they didn't, but for aficionados of the bizarre it's a must.
V**L
A great movie
I don't watch many Italian movies, but if they are of this quality I'll have to get hold of more. A simple, but well structured story, that grasps your attention from beginning to the end.
F**L
A well-structured, quirky and very funny con movie with an emphasis on the characters
I really enjoyed this film. It's reminiscent of the Coen brothers visually and in the plotting - though with more emphasis on character development (particularly the lead) and less on the twists and turns. Mussolini's fascist new-towns of Latina and Sabaudia provide a great back-drop, even if the director is perhaps a little bit too far up his own backside at time.(By the way, the interview with Sorrentino, the director, is also worth watching, for the outright abuse he hurls towards the lead actor, Giacomo Rizzo - a "very tiresome man" who, even after the film was over had no conception of the character he portrayed.)
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