I will assume this movie is based on a true story. It seems like someone's memory of their youth. And someone's nostalgic view of their youth might be fascinating to them, but there's no guarantee that others will feel the same. No, I take that back; there is a guarantee that others will not feel the same. I certainly did not feel anything except a slight revulsion for this disturbing "memory."
In this bizarre, wandering, slow, meaningless movie, Gennaro, a young Italian boy (played by Jerry Barone--very cute, but no inherent talent) is living through a hot summer with Luisa, his widowed mother (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) and his dying grandfather (Al Pacino, who, at 55, had to be covered in old-age make up). It's 1933, Philadelphia. A new movie theater, La Paloma, has just opened in town and is being advertised by a truck driving round and round and round and round, announcing that it is "air-cooled." To Gennaro, it sounds like the greatest thing in the world to escape the miserably hot summer. The only problem is that he will need "two bits" (25 cents) to buy a ticket go in.
Getting those two bits is Gennaro's only goal in life on this particular day. It seems he "must" get to the theater by 6pm, although I cannot distinctly recall why. He knows that Gramps is holding a quarter in his hand or has one on his body, and he is fixated on getting it. Gramps is sitting outside Luisa's house on a little patio. He is sick (from what I don't know) and he talks about dying constantly. He and Gennaro have lots of chats, none of them interesting. Gennaro cannot understand why Gramps won't give him those "two bits" -- and neither could I. If Gramps was dying (and he was), and the kid wanted to go to the movies, I don't understand why Gramps was holding on to the money. On the other hand, Gennaro only seems to have a surface interest in Gramps's well-being. He isn't scared or tearful or worried about Gramps dying; he just wants Gramps's "two bits."
So, since Gramps won't give Gennaro the money, Gennaro spends the movie trying to get the two bits in whatever way he can. These ways include disturbing experiences with cleaning up the basement for the town's doctor, encountering the doctor's sex-starved wife who gives off the impression that she'll give Gennaro the money he needs if he'll "just come up to her bedroom" (the kid was 12!), a grocer (who takes pity on him and gives him a nickel), a return to the doctor's wife (who has now hanged herself), and more chats with Gramps.
As the movie goes on, Gramps promises to give Gennaro the money if he'll do a favor for him. The favor is: apologize to the girl that allowed Gramps to have sex with her before he got married so that he would not be a virgin. The fact that it destroyed this girl's life has now apparently come back to haunt Gramps. The fact that the girl (now an elderly woman with her own family) lives about 5 minutes away (meaning Gramps had endless opportunities to apologize himself) doesn't seem to have never registered in Gramps's brain until today. So, Gennaro walks two or three blocks to the woman's house, demands to see her, charges into the house, where the woman and her family are eating dinner, and basically blurts out what Gramps told him to say. The woman will not forgive Gramps until Gennaro kisses her on her lips! Now, why would that woman want that kid to kiss her? And in what way would that allow her to "forgive" Gramps? It was a chilling moment and really creepy in the worst possible way.
By the time Gennaro completes his task, Gramps is definitely on the way out. He has spent the entire day sitting outside, where apparently he never has to use the facilities. He can barely stand and apparently has spent these last several weeks (Months? Years? Who knows?), sitting outside and reflecting on his past (and it doesn't seem that he has done much with his life). Luisa's main purpose is to care for him, while she apparently also works a job for which she gets little money. Luisa's obnoxious, righteous sister Carmela also appears to take her place at Gramp's "chairside," eschewing the advice of a second doctor to get Gramps inside and into a bed. Carmela, who knows nothing, but thinks she knows everything, screams at the doctor that "his family knows best what to do" and that "we aren't going to take advice from you." She did it in a cruel, callous way. She was also cruel and judgmental of Gennaro and it struck me that the kid never really knew love in his life, even though he has a brief tender moment with his mother and even though he tells Gramps that he loves him. (The problem is: the boy said the lines he was supposed to, but I never believed him. He was doing what they told him to do.)
Finally Gramps dies, and once he does, his grip loosens on the "two bits," the kid grabs the quarter (because it's now after 6pm-- and as he learned earlier when he tried to go to La Paloma, he'll need 50 cents to get in, because the price goes up after 6pm), and enters the theater. We don't know what movie is showing, and it doesn't matter, because apparently the theater is like heaven on earth, which is something that I guess was imparted to him by Gramps and is discussed in a voiceover as the kid disappears into the dark theater.
From the beginning, the movie has totally unnecessary voiceovers from Gennaro as a "middle-aged man" to "explain" what was going on. They were pointless and disappear for the majority of the movie. I don't understand why some people feel compelled to use voiceovers. The majority of them do not enhance the story, nor do they make things "clearer."
At the start of the movie there are some amusing scenes of a wedding and funeral converging on the same church, while Gennaro sits on the sidelines and watches. That was the most interesting scene, but the boy is only a bystander. These "slice-of-life" scenes have no connection with the rest of the story.
I am sure that the people involved in this project thought this was a charming "coming-of-age" story. It is not. It is the story of a somewhat obtuse kid who can only think about how to get those "two bits" so he can go into the "air-cooled" La Paloma theater (to see what, I don't know, and no one else does either). It was written by the same man who wrote "Psycho," hence (I guess) the two chilling moments where the kid sees the woman who hanged herself, and where the kid is forced to kiss the angry old woman whose life was destroyed because Gramps promised her love if she gave himself to her.
I give it two stars because the wedding/funeral scene was entertaining and an effort was made to convey the era. But otherwise, despite Al Pacino's gifts as an actor, this was two thumbs down.
In this bizarre, wandering, slow, meaningless movie, Gennaro, a young Italian boy (played by Jerry Barone--very cute, but no inherent talent) is living through a hot summer with Luisa, his widowed mother (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) and his dying grandfather (Al Pacino, who, at 55, had to be covered in old-age make up). It's 1933, Philadelphia. A new movie theater, La Paloma, has just opened in town and is being advertised by a truck driving round and round and round and round, announcing that it is "air-cooled." To Gennaro, it sounds like the greatest thing in the world to escape the miserably hot summer. The only problem is that he will need "two bits" (25 cents) to buy a ticket go in.
Getting those two bits is Gennaro's only goal in life on this particular day. It seems he "must" get to the theater by 6pm, although I cannot distinctly recall why. He knows that Gramps is holding a quarter in his hand or has one on his body, and he is fixated on getting it. Gramps is sitting outside Luisa's house on a little patio. He is sick (from what I don't know) and he talks about dying constantly. He and Gennaro have lots of chats, none of them interesting. Gennaro cannot understand why Gramps won't give him those "two bits" -- and neither could I. If Gramps was dying (and he was), and the kid wanted to go to the movies, I don't understand why Gramps was holding on to the money. On the other hand, Gennaro only seems to have a surface interest in Gramps's well-being. He isn't scared or tearful or worried about Gramps dying; he just wants Gramps's "two bits."
So, since Gramps won't give Gennaro the money, Gennaro spends the movie trying to get the two bits in whatever way he can. These ways include disturbing experiences with cleaning up the basement for the town's doctor, encountering the doctor's sex-starved wife who gives off the impression that she'll give Gennaro the money he needs if he'll "just come up to her bedroom" (the kid was 12!), a grocer (who takes pity on him and gives him a nickel), a return to the doctor's wife (who has now hanged herself), and more chats with Gramps.
As the movie goes on, Gramps promises to give Gennaro the money if he'll do a favor for him. The favor is: apologize to the girl that allowed Gramps to have sex with her before he got married so that he would not be a virgin. The fact that it destroyed this girl's life has now apparently come back to haunt Gramps. The fact that the girl (now an elderly woman with her own family) lives about 5 minutes away (meaning Gramps had endless opportunities to apologize himself) doesn't seem to have never registered in Gramps's brain until today. So, Gennaro walks two or three blocks to the woman's house, demands to see her, charges into the house, where the woman and her family are eating dinner, and basically blurts out what Gramps told him to say. The woman will not forgive Gramps until Gennaro kisses her on her lips! Now, why would that woman want that kid to kiss her? And in what way would that allow her to "forgive" Gramps? It was a chilling moment and really creepy in the worst possible way.
By the time Gennaro completes his task, Gramps is definitely on the way out. He has spent the entire day sitting outside, where apparently he never has to use the facilities. He can barely stand and apparently has spent these last several weeks (Months? Years? Who knows?), sitting outside and reflecting on his past (and it doesn't seem that he has done much with his life). Luisa's main purpose is to care for him, while she apparently also works a job for which she gets little money. Luisa's obnoxious, righteous sister Carmela also appears to take her place at Gramp's "chairside," eschewing the advice of a second doctor to get Gramps inside and into a bed. Carmela, who knows nothing, but thinks she knows everything, screams at the doctor that "his family knows best what to do" and that "we aren't going to take advice from you." She did it in a cruel, callous way. She was also cruel and judgmental of Gennaro and it struck me that the kid never really knew love in his life, even though he has a brief tender moment with his mother and even though he tells Gramps that he loves him. (The problem is: the boy said the lines he was supposed to, but I never believed him. He was doing what they told him to do.)
Finally Gramps dies, and once he does, his grip loosens on the "two bits," the kid grabs the quarter (because it's now after 6pm-- and as he learned earlier when he tried to go to La Paloma, he'll need 50 cents to get in, because the price goes up after 6pm), and enters the theater. We don't know what movie is showing, and it doesn't matter, because apparently the theater is like heaven on earth, which is something that I guess was imparted to him by Gramps and is discussed in a voiceover as the kid disappears into the dark theater.
From the beginning, the movie has totally unnecessary voiceovers from Gennaro as a "middle-aged man" to "explain" what was going on. They were pointless and disappear for the majority of the movie. I don't understand why some people feel compelled to use voiceovers. The majority of them do not enhance the story, nor do they make things "clearer."
At the start of the movie there are some amusing scenes of a wedding and funeral converging on the same church, while Gennaro sits on the sidelines and watches. That was the most interesting scene, but the boy is only a bystander. These "slice-of-life" scenes have no connection with the rest of the story.
I am sure that the people involved in this project thought this was a charming "coming-of-age" story. It is not. It is the story of a somewhat obtuse kid who can only think about how to get those "two bits" so he can go into the "air-cooled" La Paloma theater (to see what, I don't know, and no one else does either). It was written by the same man who wrote "Psycho," hence (I guess) the two chilling moments where the kid sees the woman who hanged herself, and where the kid is forced to kiss the angry old woman whose life was destroyed because Gramps promised her love if she gave himself to her.
I give it two stars because the wedding/funeral scene was entertaining and an effort was made to convey the era. But otherwise, despite Al Pacino's gifts as an actor, this was two thumbs down.