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Italian Studies – Tribeca 2021

David GonzalezDavid Gonzalez

Vanessa Kirby has been on quite a roll over the past few years. From her role on Netflix’s The Crown to her action-filled role in Hobbs and Shaw to her heartbreaking Academy Award-nominated performance in Pieces of a Woman, Kirby continues to show depth in her performances becoming one of the shining stars in Hollywood.

Next up is her latest film Italian Studies, from writer/director Adam Leon. Unfortunately, despite Kirby’s commanding on-screen presence, the film is a confusing, convoluted mess that fails to deliver on the intriguing premise.

Italian Studies tells the story of Alina Reynolds (Kirby), a writer who is suffering from amnesia and is unsure if she’s confused or in crisis. While the film opens and closes in London, it mainly takes place in New York City. Throughout the film, there are moments where she encounters different individuals, real and imagined. The audience finds it hard to decipher who is who. Are these individual’s memories, figments of her imagination, or characters from her books?

Adam Leon fails to let the audience or the movie solve the mystery, which in turn will bring layers of confusion that will leave cinephiles with a feeling of dissatisfaction when the film ends. While Italian Studies is essentially about an artist who forgets herself, the ambiguity of how and why she loses her memory makes the film feel incomplete and empty.

While the film fails to deliver, Kirby’s performance is noteworthy. She commands the screen with confidence and charisma that make Alina an intriguing character. So naturally, we want to join Kirby on her journey to discover who she is, even if we have more questions than answers by the film’s end.

Another highlight is Brett Jutkiewicz’s cinematography. It offers up New York City with beautiful warm tones that set the film’s mood while incorporating New York as a central figure of the movie and Kirby’s Alina. Nicholas Britell’s score is haunting and adds to the dreamlike mind of Alina, and it’s quite a shame the film does not match the quality of Kirby, its cinematography, and its score.

Ultimately, Italian Studies leaves the door between the real and the fictional world wide open. Its spontaneity makes the film, not the worst, but the most disappointing film of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

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David Gonzalez
David Gonzalez is the founder and chief film critic of The Cinematic Reel (formally Reel Talk Inc.) and host of the Reel Chronicles and Chop Talk podcasts. As a Cuban American independent film critic, David writes fair and diverse criticism covering movies of all genres and spotlighting minority voices through Reel Talk. David has covered and reviewed films at Tribeca, TIFF, NYFF, Sundance, SXSW, and several other film festivals. He is a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer-Approved Critic and a member of the Latino Entertainment Journalists Association (LEJA), New York Film Critics Online, Hollywood Film Critics Association, the North American Film Critic Association and the International Film Society Critics Association. As an avid film collector and awards watcher, David's finger is always on the industry's pulse. David informs and educates with knowledgeable and exciting content and has become a trusted resource for readers and listeners alike. Email him at david@reeltalkinc.com or follow him on Twitter and Instagram @reeltalkinc.

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