lekkerruiker I found it very hard to bring up sympathy for the characters in this film. Acctualy, the only person I liked was the chauffeur, and only because he slapped one of the annoying kids. All the characters were awfully stereotyped and practically all the events were clichés. It was very easy to predict what was going to happen. The two girls that represent the two political visions are the best examples.Due to the fact that I'm Dutch and not Italian doesn't really give me the right to comment this because I'm not fully familiar with the Italian political atmosphere etc. Maybe in Italy it is that Black/White...

jotix100 Paolo Virzi's "Caterina va in citta" is a film where he decided to throw his own personal take in the Italian society of the present. Mr. Virzi is a director of talent. In this film, he decides to give us a disarming heroine, Caterina, who is at the center of two opposing factions, the left and the right.At the beginning of the film we meet Giancarlo Iacovani, who is a teacher in a northwest coastal town, perhaps in Tuscany. He is telling his boring students how he has hated them for making his life miserable while trying to teach them something, as he is bailing out to his native Rome, where he is finally been transferred.His daughter Caterina, the intense and earnest teen ager, is seen practicing in the chorus and she gets carried away singing the beautiful music she adores. She appears not too keen on the moving to Rome. The area where they are moving to seems to be a place where chaos reigns and where the apartments are so close to one another that the young girls can see all what's going on with all the neighbors across the street.As Caterina is going to start classes, a proud Giancarlo, is seen taking her to her first day of school at the same one where he has gone himself, years before. The class Caterina joins is an unruly place where the young people are clearly from two different factions, those with money and right wing sympathizers, or those with money but left wingers leaning into communism. Caterina is made feel unwelcome for sticking out as she doesn't belong with one group, or the other.Upon going home from the first day of school and showing her father Giancarlo the names of her classmates, he becomes impressed because most of the students seem to be connected to who's who in Rome! Caterina is accepted first by Margherita, the rebel with left wing parents. Caterina learns this girl has gotten rid of her father's manuscript, which he had sent to Margherita's mother, an editor. Then, Daniela, the leader of the opposite faction, takes her under her wing and sophisticates her appearance. At the end, Caterina realizes Daniella is no friend either. The affection that Daniela's cousin shows to Caterina is thwarted when her snobbish mother makes a point to tell him to stop seeing the provincial girl.The film keeps a fast pace that works for the movie. It seems that Mr. Virzi parallels the life in Rome to what we are seeing. The city, alas, has the wrong effect in Giancarlo, who is suspended from his teaching post and as he tries to fight for it, he is made aware he doesn't amount to anything and decides to take off on his own after he fixes his old motorcycle. It is clear at this point that Agata, the long suffering wife, has had it with his ups and downs as she finds solace with Fabietto, the kind bachelor friend.The best thing in the film is Alice Teghil, who, as Caterina, is seen exploring new things that ultimately can't compare with the life she had in the small town she came from, with all its problems and small mindedness. Sergio Castellito plays the strident Giancarlo, a man that comes unglued in pursuing his dream of returning to the capital with little success once he is there. Margherita Buy, a beautiful actress, has little to do as Agata, the long suffering wife of Giancarlo. She is the only sane person we encounter in the film.As the bad girls, Carolina Iaquaniello, is the grungy-Italian-style-like Margherita, the girl grown among the intellectual crowd. Federica Sberema, plays Daniela, the rich girl who is a mess and who moves with a fast crowd. The supporting cast do a good job.The best part is the ending in which we watch the radiant Caterina doing what she does best: singing to her heart's content!

gf1701 I rooted for Caterina as she discovers herself and the world around her, but it is a world full of one-dimensional people. All the secondary characters in this film--with the exception of Caterina's neighbor, Edward, who appears too briefly--show only one side of themselves. Her father rants and raves throughout, except for his period of deep depression, where he does nothing at all. Her mother is meek and clueless. Her friends are either spoiled brats or angry rebels. I found them all to be insufferable, and the movie suffered for it. Both we and Caterina deserved better.("Mean Girls" covers some of the same ground as this film, minus the politics, and does it much better.)

picouli I think Virzì is one of the most interesting director in Italy, at the present moment. His ability to portray the current Italian society is quite good, and he achieves this either with *characters* (the two families in "Ferie d'Agosto", the father in "Caterina va in città") and with *stories* (the story of "Ovosodo", a bit of an Italian "It's a wonderful life"... just a bit, obviously... :-)."Caterina va in città" is a good movie: the idea of showing chunks of the Italian society and habits through the eyes of an innocent teenager gives the movie a "fairy tale" twist that makes it really "light" and enjoyable. I also liked the mom's character, played by a really good and beautiful Margherita Buy: in general, I appreciated Virzì's idea that the "good" part of society is based on the strength of women, as all male characters in this movie either are donquixotesque losers or spoiled and arrogant over-grown babies.But, as for most of his movies, I think the same criticism again apply: Virzì is openly a left-wing director, but he stresses this a bit too much and sometimes its works sound too "ideological": art should make you think, not tell you what to think, I guess. In addiction, some characters are too stereotypical and don't come out of a really deep psychological analysis. Still, I think he is currently the director who knows best how to take on the screen what goes on in Italy.In conclusion, I think this movie - just like "Ovosodo" - is based on a simple yet powerful assumption: that happiness is the disease of the idiots...