CINEMA: Genova

Of late, Michael Winterbottom’s films have been getting more and more diverse and Genova is hard to categorise. On the surface it is very obviously an exploration of grief, but it is also about guilt, growing up, being a stranger in a strange land, and also about hope and new beginnings.

Having lost his wife in a car accident, university lecturer Joe (Colin Firth) takes up a new position in the Italian city of Genova on the advice of old colleague Barbara (Catherine Keener). Already disorientated by the loss of their mother, Joe’s daughters – teenage Kelly (Willa Holland) and ten-year-old Mary (Perla Haney-Jardine) – find it hard to adapt to this new life where they know no one and cannot speak the language. Kelly copes by throwing herself in with a wild crowd, smoking dope and experimenting sexually, while Mary doesn’t cope at all frequently waking from terrifying nightmares and seeing visions of her mother among the crowded, twisting allies of the old city.

Although Barbara is aware that Mary needs help it is as if Joe has deliberately blinded himself to the problems, believing if the family just moves on things will turn out all right. In fact, by ignoring the growing chasm between himself and his children, Joe is putting them more at risk than he can ever know.

As an observation of grief and bereavement Genova is spot on and the thorny problem of sibling rivalry is also nicely handled. But overall, there is something indefinably missing from the film; there’s always the feeling you are passively watching this family in crisis rather than rubbing shoulders with them and feeling their pain. Without that empathy Genova is not as moving or engaging as it should be, and it remains a clinical exploration of grief without immersing you in the messy, tormenting emotions the grieving feel.     

Dee Pilgrim