Culture

Directed by Michael Winterbottom
(3.5/5)

Colin Firth stars in Genova as Joe, a man whose wife has recently died in a car accident, leaving him alone to raise his two daughters, Mary (Perla Haney-Jardine) and Kelly (Willa Holland). They temporarily move from Chicago to Genova, Italy, as Joe has been offered a guest lecturer position at a university there. He sees the trip as an extended family vacation that will allow them to grow in the absence of the mother.
Catherine Keener plays Barbara, an old university friend of Joe who is also in Genova teaching. As an American, she is their guide to this new place, and a mother figure. Mary, the youngest, develops an affinity with Barbara, and confides that she still sees her dead mother, as if she were a ghost, and still talks with her. Kelly, a teenager, attracts the attention of many young Italian suitors. Winterbottom makes her fragility and vulnerability apparent, as she races around town clinging to the backs of boys on their scooters. Joe finds himself being sought after by two women, Barbara and one of his young Italian students, but the two women that need him the most are his daughters.
Adjusting to life in a different city is an appropriate metaphor for this family learning to live without their mother. Everything is foreign and new. Genova may come off as slow and uneventful, but where it succeeds is in its great sensitivity and insight into family relationships.