Camped in Rome, in the 1970s, The immensityaccording to the title of a song by Don Backy, depicts a family on the verge of exploding whose dazzling central figure, Clara, interpreted with panache and sensitivity by Penélope Cruz, echoes Grazia, mother of freedom-loving family embodied by Valeria Golino 20 years earlier in Respiroalso by Emanuele Crialese.
Like Clara, Grazia shocked those around her with her extravagance, her sensitive sensitivity and her close relationship with her three children, particularly the eldest, to the chagrin of the head of the family (here also played by Vincenzo Amato). . Drawing on his childhood memories, Emanuele Crialese preferred opulent Roman apartments to the beauties of the island of Lampedusa, south of Sicily, in order to pay homage to his own mother.
However, he substituted the character of the eldest son for that of a teenager convinced of having been born in the wrong body, Adri (Luana Giuliani, whose intense gaze reflects a limited palette of emotions), diminutive of Adriana, who would like to be called Andrea, a male name. Remember that last year, at the Venice Film Festival, the filmmaker, who had dreamed for years of shooting The immensityhad revealed to be a trans man.
Evoking little Laure in tomboy, by Céline Sciamma, who dealt with gender identity in fine detail, Andrea is only too happy when Sara (Penélope Nieto Conti), who lives with her family in a shanty town threatened with being razed, immediately mistakes him for a boy. Andrea will be even more so when he discovers that Sara likes him.
Family chronicle
Not having wanted to make a film on transition or gender reveal, Crialese and his scriptwriter accomplices, Francesca Manieri and Vittorio Moroni, cast doubt on the teenager’s gender identity. Witness to the misfortunes of his mother, whom he accuses of being too beautiful when the latter is harassed by passers-by, is Andrea really a transgender boy? Aware of the ambient machismo, does he reject the feminine stereotypes that conservative society wants to impose on him? What is clear is that Andrea’s behavior contributes to creating more and more tension between her father, a tyrannical womanizer, and her mother, who takes refuge in fantasy.
As a counterpoint to the arguments between the parents, the blows of the father and the tears of the mother, Emanuele Crialese offers amusing scenes where Clara involves her children in the dance. As the violence escalates in this hearth of rich, darkening colors, Clara makes her own cinema while Andrea imagines her as Raffaella Carrà singing Rumore or in Patty Pravo covering in Italian the theme song of Love Story.
As charming as these assumed kitsch paintings are, shot in black and white, modeled on real variety shows of the time, they cause the story to stagnate and prevent the characters from developing. Despite its heartbreaking story, The immensity remains a bittersweet family chronicle where the filmmaker, perhaps out of modesty, avoided going in depth.