valis1949 CATERINA IN THE BIG CITY offers a novel and original approach to The Teen Genre. A timeless 'Coming of Age' tale is portrayed with truth and style, although the specifics of contemporary Italian politics lose a bit in translation, even a viewer who is ignorant of European politics is not left in the dark. Caterina (played by Alice Teghil) is a junior high school aged student who relocates to Rome with her family. Her father is a frustrated teacher who feels that his career has been sidetracked in the sleepy, coastal town of Monalto, and looks forward to the possibility of social and intellectual advancement in the big city. Soon, he runs up against the stratified nature of Italian society, and Caterina encounters the same setup, but within her school system. From her first day in class, she meets classmates who toss around political jeremiads which they don't really comprehend, but are very emotionally attached. Although, by the end of the school year, Caterina is moved and changed by her experiences, she seems to understand that these emotionally charged names and categories never tell the whole story, and really amount to passionate clichés. Paolo Virzì, the director, is known in Italy for his ability to examine the entrenched nature of Italian politics with humor and insight. CATERINA IN THE BIG CITY an intelligent look at what it is like to live in a stratified society, and to strive to locate your unique and proper place.

greenylennon "Caterina va in città" has the quality every great Italian masterpiece has: every time you watch it, you discover a topic you hadn't noticed before and you never get tired of his funny sequences, mainly because from those scenes you draw the conclusions about what this film wanted to communicate."Caterina va in città" can count on some of the best current Italian actors: Sergio Castellitto and Margherita Buy, who play Caterina's parents, share a perfect chemistry. You can believe they are a married couple since more than ten years in this film, and you can't do anything but appreciate the aristocratic Mrs Buy finally playing a bungler, mind-absent, but loving and a bit boor Italian mummy. You can't argue about Castellitto: the things his character says are sadly true in Italy nowadays. The beginner Alice Teghil is the ideal choice for the sweet Caterina: her innocent and deep eyes speak more than a thousand word. She's the only pure character in the whole film and you feel there's still justice in this world, when, in the closing scene, we see her singing happy and free in the National Academy of Santa Cecilia's choir. There're other remarkable performances: Federica Sbrenna (Daniela Germano), Carolina Iaquaniello (Margherita Rossi Chaillet), for example, and also Claudio Amendola (Daniela's father), Flavio Bucci and Galatea Ranzi (Margherita's parents). Behind the camera there's Paolo Virzì, one of the most sharp and smart directors in Italy.I lived a situation similar to Caterina's two years ago, and, because of this heaven-sent film, I understood a lot of things and finally resolved that annoying problem. That's way I owe my happiness and my inner peace to this film. Thanks, thanks, and still thanks, Caterina.

Andres Salama This excellent Italian comedy is very similar in plot to Mean Girls (who came out in about the same time). The difference is that this is a much more politicized film. Caterina is a shy teenager from a small town in Italy, who moves to Rome with her long-suffering mother and her teacher father, when he is assigned to a new job there. In her new school, she has to choose to what clique to belong: the children of the progressive intellectuals or the children of the rich industrialists. The left or the right. What this film says is that these people are not terribly different between themselves. They both hold a degree of fame and power in Italian society, and look down upon those who don't. The outstanding performance in the movie is that of Caterina's father, the teacher Giancarlo (Sergio Castellito), a hothead angry that others have gotten all the breaks in life, who rants against the rich and privileged but who would sell his soul in a second in order to join the establishment. He is a familiar type of malcontent in real life but one who is seldom shown in the movies. There is a silly subplot of Caterina falling in love with an Australian boy (What they did that for? To reach an international market?), but all in all, this is one of the best Italian movies of the last years.

jotix100 Paolo Virzi's "Caterina va in citta" is a film where he decided to throw his own personal take in the Italian society of the present. Mr. Virzi is a director of talent. In this film, he decides to give us a disarming heroine, Caterina, who is at the center of two opposing factions, the left and the right.At the beginning of the film we meet Giancarlo Iacovani, who is a teacher in a northwest coastal town, perhaps in Tuscany. He is telling his boring students how he has hated them for making his life miserable while trying to teach them something, as he is bailing out to his native Rome, where he is finally been transferred.His daughter Caterina, the intense and earnest teen ager, is seen practicing in the chorus and she gets carried away singing the beautiful music she adores. She appears not too keen on the moving to Rome. The area where they are moving to seems to be a place where chaos reigns and where the apartments are so close to one another that the young girls can see all what's going on with all the neighbors across the street.As Caterina is going to start classes, a proud Giancarlo, is seen taking her to her first day of school at the same one where he has gone himself, years before. The class Caterina joins is an unruly place where the young people are clearly from two different factions, those with money and right wing sympathizers, or those with money but left wingers leaning into communism. Caterina is made feel unwelcome for sticking out as she doesn't belong with one group, or the other.Upon going home from the first day of school and showing her father Giancarlo the names of her classmates, he becomes impressed because most of the students seem to be connected to who's who in Rome! Caterina is accepted first by Margherita, the rebel with left wing parents. Caterina learns this girl has gotten rid of her father's manuscript, which he had sent to Margherita's mother, an editor. Then, Daniela, the leader of the opposite faction, takes her under her wing and sophisticates her appearance. At the end, Caterina realizes Daniella is no friend either. The affection that Daniela's cousin shows to Caterina is thwarted when her snobbish mother makes a point to tell him to stop seeing the provincial girl.The film keeps a fast pace that works for the movie. It seems that Mr. Virzi parallels the life in Rome to what we are seeing. The city, alas, has the wrong effect in Giancarlo, who is suspended from his teaching post and as he tries to fight for it, he is made aware he doesn't amount to anything and decides to take off on his own after he fixes his old motorcycle. It is clear at this point that Agata, the long suffering wife, has had it with his ups and downs as she finds solace with Fabietto, the kind bachelor friend.The best thing in the film is Alice Teghil, who, as Caterina, is seen exploring new things that ultimately can't compare with the life she had in the small town she came from, with all its problems and small mindedness. Sergio Castellito plays the strident Giancarlo, a man that comes unglued in pursuing his dream of returning to the capital with little success once he is there. Margherita Buy, a beautiful actress, has little to do as Agata, the long suffering wife of Giancarlo. She is the only sane person we encounter in the film.As the bad girls, Carolina Iaquaniello, is the grungy-Italian-style-like Margherita, the girl grown among the intellectual crowd. Federica Sberema, plays Daniela, the rich girl who is a mess and who moves with a fast crowd. The supporting cast do a good job.The best part is the ending in which we watch the radiant Caterina doing what she does best: singing to her heart's content!