KRYPTONITE!

Dir. Ivan Cotroneo (99min, Italy, 2011)

Noted screenwriter Ivan Cotroneo (I Am Love; Piano, Solo; Paz!) makes an impressive passage to the director’s chair with this sharply observed, bittersweet comedy about a large, colorful Neapolitan family struggling against both changing times and internal tensions. Nine years old in the early '70s, Peppino sets up the family landscape for us: his dad, Antonio, sells sewing machines when not cheating on his wife, Rosaria; his young aunt and uncle, Titina and Salvatore, are enjoying the era’s various revolutions, although not always together; and his cousin, Gennaro, wears a cape and thinks he’s Superman.

Cotroneo has a terrific sense of the period, which he captures with small but telling details; the world is changing all around his characters, and their anxiety and even befuddlement with this new world is always shown with sympathy—even when it’s laced with humor. The first-rate cast includes Valeria Golino, Luca Zingaretti, Fabrizio Gifuni and Cristina Capotondi.