Sally Warner Good movies from a culture, New Zealand, French and Australian being my favourites, and I watch a lot of movies, capture the flavour of a culture and time that encapsulates how it feels and looks.This is a timeless wonder and I am biased because it replicates my life although I am in New Zealand. So brilliant poignant moments, music from the time, average ordinary people scenery that captures the atmosphere and flavour of the time and age.Wonderful an hour or two of thorough enjoyment and a few tissue moments.Lots of people in it who went on to greater things too. What's not to love:-)

kaltroina well..i read the book so many times....and i loved it...and when i saw the movie...i was so disappointed..and sad..i get its a low budget movie.but....there are so many different parts...the movie is so empty and short..they have cut so many parts....i mean..the book wasn't 300 pages..its was a normal book..why didn't they include all the things in the movie>?? and the characters are so not a like as they are described in the book..! anyways it was worth watching it...but not more than once.I would love if someone would remake this movie..with other actors..and to do it exactly like in the book...i think people would enjoy it more!

PL1981 Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect a movie to adequately convey the rich depth, character and texture of a wonderful and highly entertaining novel. If so, perhaps then this review may be judging the movie too harshly. Nevertheless, as someone who thoroughly enjoyed the book and was looking forward to the movie adaptation, this was a big disappointment The movie adaptation came out approximately seven years after the book was published. To make it more palatable to a modern audience, the scriptwriters have therefore been forced to omit many of the contexts and cultural references contained in the book that made it such a success. This, to me, erases some of the magic of the book -it seemed such an appropriate novel for the times in which it was published and it loses some of its relevance and identity being moved forward into a more modern setting Pia Miranda may be a good actress and, from what I've seen from interviews, a very nice person but she isn't able to give Josie the character depth and dimension that I thought she required. Greta Scacchi's performance as Christina Allibrandi is entirely forgettable and fails to deliver the spark and fiery passion that the same character conveys in the book. Anthony LaPaglia gives a reasonable performance in what must be a difficult role and, if I remember, the respective actor and actress who play John Barton and Katia Allibrandi are also quite good The script and dialogue, so successful in the book, falls flat in this movie. It isn't helped by the fact that the scriptwriters insist on changing the sequence of events in the movie so that they don't make sense like they did in the book. Moving John Barton's suicide from close to the end of the novel to the middle of the movie adaptation makes no sense and serves no purpose, whereas it is evident in the novel why the suicide occurs close to the end. Furthermore part of the success of the novel is it left so many questions in the end unresolved. Why do the scriptwriters feel the need to give everything a happy ending in the movie -i.e. have Jacob meet Katia Allibrandi, have Christina Allibrandi find out her true heritage and the like? Why do the scriptwriters feel that everything has to be spelled out and resolved for the movie audience? This is not a terrible movie, it just falls flat too many times and contains too much unfulfilled potential. Personally I had hoped for much better

niara "Looking for Alibrandi" is, in my humble opinion, one of the best coming-of-age-movies that I have ever seen. Brilliant. I don't even recall it being released here in the States. It came on the cable channel, WE, Women's Entertainment, one late night and I happened to be channel surfing. I actually stayed up and watched the entire thing to the end, it was that compelling. Don't even know if it's available here in the States on DVD or VHS. It truly is a worthwhile film. I will never hear U2's "with or without you" the same way ever again. And who knew Anthony LaPaglia was so talented! It was as if I was looking at him for the first time. Had absolutely no idea that he was Australian. My goodness, what a hunk he is!