paulccarroll3 All the other reviews have gone over the plot details so I won't. Genoa looks interesting and romantic,and the actors play their parts well. But this whole story turns on the fact that Dad virtually abandons His children for the summer in a confusing city in a foreign country. After almost no orientation to their new home He hands His two daughters, ages i6 and 9,the keys and says "Good luck finding your way back home down these winding,maze like,cobble stoned alleys." Sure He comes home from work and comforts the younger daughter when she has nightmares, but He lets the older girl run wild with no control or consequences when she comes home late for curfew,and won't tell Him who she's been with or what she's doing.I don't care how much they're all mourning the death of their wife and mother,or how much the father is in denial about what His kids needs are,the very least the parent should do is set limits to behavior and control them for their own good. There never seems to be any question of "What are you doing? What are you thinking? You can't do this!"

dougpc Colin Firth has made a pretty good career of losing his spouse in the movies. Perhaps no other actor does damp eyed resignation better. This time he's a college professor whose wife dies in a tragic accident leaving him with two daughters, one crippled by the knowledge that she caused the accident. The older one seems to be auditioning for the lead role in the remake of Lolita. Turns out the dead wife is the lucky one as she only has to appear as a ghost in a couple of more scenes in this pointless, incomprehensible, nihilistic, and uttering boring movie. Mom's also pretty angry about the funeral which looks more like your typical faculty party. No one seems very sad and the kids are all outside smoking pot. The rest of the movie consists of wistful sighs, a commercial for RyanAir, furtive sidelong glances, scooter rides accompanied by bad Euro Trash music and lots of cigarettes. Does the British Lottery not have better things to do with their money? Are there no war veterans who need prosthetic limbs?

manuel-henzler87 This movie is just different. I was quite confused after the movie and had first to decide if i like the movie or not. I totally agree with other persons, that there is not really a rising story or a climax. I also agree that there are several scenes when you expect something to happen and it didn't happen anything. But that's exactly the reason why the movie is so subtly powerful. The whole story is very authentic. Every person handles the situation different, in his own way. The relation between the two sisters is displayed in a great way.... when you think what happened in the beginning and that the bigger sister didn't mention anything about that the whole time. A very good movie in detail.

paprikash2 Colin Firth in a bit of a thankless pumpkinhead role. He takes daughters, guilt-driven tween Mary and sexpot teen Kelly to Genoa for a year after his wife dies suddenly in a car accident. The British reviewers seem to acclaim his performance as "understated" and "grief-driven" but I find him clueless and baffling. His younger daughter is clearly in a state of near psychosis, and his older daughter is sexually acting out in a rather dangerous way. He says and does virtually nothing about either. I guess this is "keeping a stiff upper lip." In fact, the entirety of his role in this film seems to be to act as Julie, the Cruise Director from the Love Boat. Catherine Keener is, as usual excellent, but the only thing she gets to do is inveigh him to pay some attention. I thought the whole thing confounding.