Malena

Thanks, Miramax. If I have to sit through one more European coming-of-age film narrated by an old dowager gazing back fondly on his/her youth during wartime, I just may lose my Jujubes. Which is not to say this latest effort from Giuseppe Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso) is all bad. But the framing conceit, wherein Renato (Giuseppe Sulfaro) the horny, pimply, awfully cute Sicilian protagonist, reminisces about his first and only love by way of a gravelly, wistful voiceover, has just gotten, forgive me, old.

Malena (Monica Bellucci) is a stunning war widow who endures the catcalls of local youth (all of whom masturbate religiously in her honor), the catty gossip of matrons, and the catlike prowess of middle-aged men who court her with flowers and extra rations. Renato's obsessive devotion turns him into a shameless voyeur, but his romantic worship of Malena goes sour when she is condemned for doing what poor, lonely women are often forced, by circumstance, to do. And Tornatore's romp takes an occasional turn into brutality as the passions of swarthy Catholic men and the jealousies of devout Catholic women are inflamed by the proud Malena, who can't be bothered to notice whether the town loves or hates her. At the Avon.
-- Peg Aloi