This year's smarty-pants award goes to Donato Carrisi and his mystery, THE GIRL IN THE FOG

Can a movie be too clever for its own good? For proof, look no farther than the Italian mystery-thriller entitled THE GIRL IN THE FOG, making its USA debut via home video this week.

As written (from his own novel) and directed by Donato Carrisi, with some nice cinematography by Federico Masiero, the movie looks good, sounds good (Carrisi knows how to write decent dialog), and is very well-acted, as you might expect, starring as it does three of Europe's leading actors, two from Italy and one from France.

Signore Carrisi, shown at left, offers up a tale that is hardly original -- the kidnapping, in a down-on-its-luck Italian resort town, of a teen-age girl -- but what he proceeds to do with this is unusual and inventive, initially seeming to indict Italian society, media, police, parents, psychiatry, religion: yes, pretty much the whole sphere/schmear.

Top-billed and, as usual, earning his place is first-rate actor Toni Servillo, below, as the (in)famous police detective assigned the case, who is determined to make the very most of it -- and does, by any means necessary.

The chief suspect in the case is portrayed by Alessio Boni (below), who is equally fine as the poor schlub of a high-school teacher upon whom most of the guilt is directed. Signore Boni brings a put-upon persona, as well as a good deal of latent sex appeal to the role.

As the town's psychiatrist (or maybe psychologist), whom we early on find oddly interviewing the police detective, the more-often-seen-in-action-movies Jean Reno does a fine job of quiet exploration. The movie hops and skips about in time, back and forth, back and forth, keeping us on our toes and, for awhile at least, pleasantly confused.

If you enjoy mysteries, particularly those determined as much to surprise and outguess you as to pull you in, TrustMovies recommends this one almost whole-heartedly. His "smarty-pants" problems with the film have to do with its insistence on being clever and different at the expense of good storytelling.

There are spoilers ahead, which I usually don't offer -- but there's little way to come to terms with my doubts about the film without spilling some beans. So skip to the final paragraph if you intend to seek out this movie for a viewing. (Above is pictured the parents of the missing girl, well-played by Daniela Piazza, left, and Thierry Toscan.)

Carrisi waits until very late in the movie to even introduce the fact that there is a lot more that just a single murder going on here, and the manner in which he gives this to us piles exposition upon exposition -- and actually seems to pull the rug out from under his earlier indictments of the media and publicity-seeking policemen. (That's Lucrezia Guidone and Marina Occhionero -- above, right and left respectively -- as the suspect's wife and daughter.)

Finally, when we realize that there are actually three murderers here -- all of them the leading characters! -- we can't help but wonder if the movie is simply out to get the male gender, with the women here just fodder for use and disuse. Or maybe it's actually about a worldview of utter cynicism and misanthropy. In any case, for all the fun we may have had trying to figure things out, the film leaves a rancid taste in our mouth -- mostly out of what feels a lot like bad faith.

Still, if unusual mysteries are your cup-of-whatever, try The Girl in the Fog. It'll keep you engaged for at least much of its 128-minute running time. From Distrib Films US and released to home video via Icarus Films Home Video, the movie hits the street on DVD this Tuesday, August 6 -- for purchase and (I hope) rental. (That Greta Scacchi, above, who makes a smart, brief appearance late in the movie.)

Toni Servillo in Francesco Amato's screwball comedy from Italy, LET YOURSELF GO

After viewing that great Italian actor Toni Servillo in everything from the fine films of Paolo Sorrentino to the delightful and/or ruminative political/economic satires of Roberto Andò to the pitch-black family comedy It Was the Son and so many more wonderful movies, it may come as a particularly bright surprise to see him in what can best be described as an Italian screwball comedy.

In Francesco Amato's new film, LET YOURSELF GO (Lasciati andari), Signore Servillo plays an up-tight Jewish psychiatrist who is saddled with at least as many problems as the fairly woeful clients whom he (sort of) treats. Of course, our shrink is able to hide his problems better.

The film's co-writer (with Francesco Bruni and Davide Lantieri) and director, Signore Amato (pictured at right), has created something we don't see all that much of these days, particularly featuring an actor in the lead role as fine and full-fledged-serious as Servillo.

That would be the screwball comedy -- something so goofy and ridiculous that you certainly can't take it seriously yet conceived and executed so well that you can't help but be royally entertained.

And when TrustMovies calls Servillo's character (shown above, center) a Jewish psychiatrist, don't go to this movie expecting anything in which religion plays much of a part (Catholicism is almost as important here as Judaism). Fortunately, more than anything else, the film is a very human and humane comedy. You end up rooting for just about every character in it. And since a couple of them are escaped felons and another in a con artist/scammer, this is something of an accomplishment for Amato, his cast and crew.

The movie begins with a very screwy-looking fellow (the scary/funny Luca Marinelli, above, right), having just buried something in the ground, trying his best to count off the paces from where his "loot" now resides. Clearly he is mathematically, maybe mentally, challenged. But he's oddly amusing, even so. We won't return to him again until perhaps the movie's final forty minutes. But when we do, the remainder of the "plot" suddenly begins falling into place, and the film grows more bizarre and hilarious right up into and including the end credits (which you really must sit thru to reap the full comedic benefits).

Along its meandering but wise and witty way, Let Yourself Go makes smart fun of everything from psychotherapy (above) to physical fitness (below), synagogues and Communion. To try to describe the plot would only give away too much and probably ruin some fun in the process.

Best to just mention how very good is the Spanish actress Verónica Echegui (at right, above and below, of My Prison Yard and Bunny and the Bull) as the young exercise trainer who gives our shrink his new lease on life.  Ms Echegui has been doing lovely work for fifteen years now. She does not seem to age much and just grows more charming and versatile with each new role.

As for Servillo, the actor proves he can handle a mainstream comedy as easily and well as he does those various "art" films. He knows how to simply be quiet, alert and on-the-mark and thus manages to pull in every bit of humor he (and his movie) needs. As the "straight" man around whom the satellite of comic performers revolve, he asks for neither laughs nor sympathy yet somehow gets both. What an actor this guy is!

A non-stop delight that grow better, funnier and crazier as it moves long, Let Yourself Go -- from Menemsha Films and running 112 minutes -- opens here in South Florida this coming Friday, March 2 in the Miami area at the AMC Aventura, in Boca Raton at the Living Room Theaters and the Regal Shadowood, in Fort Lauderdale at the Savor Cinema, in Hollywood at the Cinema Paradiso, in Tamarac at The Last Picture Show and at the Movies of Del Ray and Lake Worth.

Streaming tip -- Andrea Molaioli's THE JEWEL: Toni Servillo and Italian corporate malfeasance

I wasn't much taken with Andrea Molaioli's earlier (and award-winning) movie The Girl by the Lake, so I am happy to report that his newer film, THE JEWEL (Il Gioiellino), now available to stream via Netflix, is a keeper -- all about Italian skullduggery in the corporate sector that may remind viewers who possess a little European history of the Parmalat dairy empire scandal that rocked Italy (and much of the Western world) back in 2003. Names have certainly been changed, as well as the time frame, but there is no mistaking the resemblances to certain people, living or dead, that bounce and romp across the screen, as the ever-entitled one per cent again stiffs the rest of us 99ers -- taking a few of their own along with them in the process. (That's filmmaker Molaioli, shown below.)

The other thing that makes this movie stand-out is its central perfor-mance by one of Italy's acting greats, Toni Servillo -- who, by now, has given just about every kind of amazing performance you can think of -- Il Divo to It Was the Son to his set of twins in the recent Viva la libertà -- and this guy just keeps getting better and better. (Probably Servillo's least interesting performance is in Molaioli's own Girl by the Lake.)

The Jewel begins almost at the end of things, then flashes back to, if not their beginning, at least a good ways into when the trouble bubbled to the surface. The director's style here is flashy -- but to a point. He weaves together all the pomp and PR with the use of politicians and religion, economics and accounting, and even a looks at some of the actual products created here -- finally creating a huge carpet of deception and avarice that would not be out of place in modern Russia. (One of the characters we meet even suggests Russia as an appropriate retirement spot for the company's CEO, played with infinite savoir faire and sleaze by Remo Girone, above).

Signore Servillo, above, plays the firm's expert accountant, a man who certainly knows his way around "creative bookkeeping," but who also turns out to be among the most decent of the film's many males. His relationship with a younger and quite attractive worker, who is also the niece of the reigning titan, becomes something much more interesting than we usually get in movies of this sort, and Servillo and his co-star, Sarah Felberbaum (below) make the most of it.

Given the complications of the plot and the machinations of all sorts from all angles, Molaioli is nonetheless able to keep us -- not simply understanding what is going on but also glued to the screen by all the greed, glamor and betrayals on view.  This is heady stuff, brought to a fine boil by the writer/director and his co-scribes, Ludovica Rampoldi and Gabriele Romagnoli.

Considering the number of characters here and the several sub-plots -- all of which lead us back to the central company, Leda, and its "output" -- by the film's strangely unsettling and moving finale, we've received a nasty but salutary education in Italian business. And maybe some understanding of what happened in that Parmalat fiasco.

The Jewel, running a fast-paced 110 minutes, is available now via Netflix streaming and probably elsewhere, too.

A must-see for Toni Servillo/Italian cinema fans: Roberto Andò's VIVA LA LIBERTA

Apologies for posting this review so very tardily, as the movie in question opened this past Friday and is one of the year's best so far: VIVA LA LIBERTA, a funny, moving, sad and thoughtful look at politics today -- in Italy, of course, but really just about everywhere in the western world -- about which compromise and money, narcissism and vanity, promises and personality trump all else. The writer/director, Roberto Andò, takes a age-old tale, that of the unknown twin, and via a supremely elegant visual style, whip-smart scenario and breathtaking lead performance(s), turns it into a modern-day fable non-pareil.

Signore Andò, shown above, is known to me via ony one other film, Secret Journey (Viaggio Segreto), which I saw some years back at the FSLC's Open Roads. (My earlier review of that film for Greencine is here.) It has remained in my memory as a keeper, and now this new film of his joins it to make an even more memorable duo. While Secret Journey was gorgeous, florid, melodramatic and riveting, Viva la libertà is elegant, restrained, subtle and smooth as silk. While I love both films, if identity had been kept from me, I doubt I would ever have guessed the same man made these two movies.

This new film has an additional weapon that tends to crush all in its path. That would be the consummate actor Toni Servillo (above and below, center), who, playing the identical twins, gives us a double dose of great acting. He endows both men with such terrific and pointed details -- these both differentiate the two and entertain us immeasurably, that once the plot get into motion, we're hooked for the entire fast-paced running time.

Andò has also conspired to make this movie about politics and movie-making, and he has done it in a plausible, easy-going way that makes perfect sense plot-wise, as one of our two heroes does a disappearing act in order to visit an important ex-girlfriend (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, below) who is now married to a film director and is in the middle of working on a film shoot in France, on which our politician finds himself also working. This makes for some charming but pointed references to reality, creativity, imagination, politics, the workplace and more.

At its heart, the movie is dissecting Italian politics, the people's need for a hero and guide, and how truth, spoken plainly, can produce the right kind of shock and awe. So much happens in the course of the film, and yet so little changes, too. That, unfortunately, is another of the film's points.

Especially fine in the film's supporting cast is Valerio Mastandrea, above, as our politician's right-hand man, who starts the ball rolling by using the other twin, and then cannot stop  -- and maybe wouldn't want to -- the ensuing progress.

Made last year, Viva la libertà was eclipsed by The Great Beauty, also starring Servillo, which Italy submitted for, and which then won, Best Foreign Language Film. The Great Beauty was very good, but Viva la libertà is even better. Stick it on your must-see list now.

The movie, from Distrib Films and running a sleek 94 minutes, opened in New York at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and Quad Cinema last Friday, November 7. It will hit Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Royal, Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5). In between those dates and after, the film will open throughout the USA. You can see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters by clicking here, then scrolling down just a bit to click again on THEATERS, then scrolling down some more.