FATHER AND SON (MADE IN ITALY)

'Made in Italy' is not a terrible movie.

However it's far from being a decent movie either.

Directed by James d'Arcy, the actor who some audiences may know from BBC1's Easter Rising series 'Rebel Heart' or ITV's 'Broadchurch' or Peter Weir's 'Master and Commander,' the film trods on ground so predictable you don't have to work hard to play Tuscan cliché bingo.

Real-life father and son Liam Neeson and Micheal Richardson play a fictional father and son who are wrestling their grief and other demons.

Neeson's Robert Foster is a Jackson Pollockesque artist who has retreated from public exhibition of his work.

Robert womanises and lives off the profits of his past work in London.

Richardson's Jack Foster is going through a difficult divorce and is devastated that his estranged wife Yolonda Kettle's Ruth seems intent on selling the London gallery he curates.

Desperate to raise money to buy the gallery, Jack hatches a plan to sell his family's Tuscan villa which has been going to rack and ruin and which they last visited 20 years ago.

He cajoles his father into jumping into a van, catching a ferry from Dover and heading to Tuscany where they have arranged for Lindsay Duncan's estate agent Kate to pitch it to English people looking to buy an Italian home.

The problem is that it is in such a state of disrepair that Jack has to literally break down the front door to get in.

A weasel is occupying the kitchen cupboards and bathroom.

There is dust everywhere and it badly needs a lick of paint, although Robert's abstract expressionist explosion of paint on one wall has somehow remained intact.

Another part of the house is padlocked.

At Kate's behest, Jack sets about planning the resurrection of the villa but only has a couple of days to do it.

While Jack enthusiastically embraces the task, Robert kind of ambles along, not really showing much drive or interest other than fiercely protecting his expressionist mural.

They get some time to explore the village and it is there where Jack encounters Valeria Bilello's Natalia by falling literally at her feet and knocking over chairs outside her restaurant.

Natalia makes him a delicious lunch and a bond is struck.

We discover that she is a divorced mum whose louse of a husband lied to get custody of their daughter.

As she learns more about the tragedy that robbed Jack of a mother and Robert of a wife, she gets more involved in their efforts to restore the villa.

But Robert and Jack must confront their past and the pain it inflicted if they are to prosper during their Tuscan adventure.

Written as well as directed by d'Arcy, 'Made in Italy' is well meaning, lightly comic fare.

However like a lot of movies directed by actors, it comes across as too theatrical.

It is simply too focused on actors ACTING.

Neeson and Richardson are encouraged by their director to ACT and for much of the film are more hammy than a platter of antipasto.

Every syllable is over-pronounced as d'Arcy's stars focus on their English accents - although Neeson sometimes cannot prevent his Co Antrim brogue from occasionally slipping through.

Richardson is straining so hard to get his softly spoken, cut glass English accent right that he looks like he is doing an Orlando Bloom impersonation.

Given the similarity of the characters' tragedy with the real life loss sustained by his leads, d'Arcy tries to tap into Neeson and Richardson's own experience.

However it's all a bit underwhelming.

Bilello, though, is charming in a terribly predictable role while Duncan seems criminally underused.

Kettle is saddled with a predictable part, while Eileen Walsh amuses as a New Age hippy dippy prospective buyer in arguably the funniest moment in the film.

Director of cinematography Mike Eley does a decent job capturing the beauty of the Tuscan countryside.

However d'Arcy's direction and writing are just too clichéd, too cosy and too predictable.

'Made In Italy' is simply not cinematic enough and it rarely moves beyond the feeling that even as a TV sitcom, it would make dull viewing.

Italy has inspired many great relationship dramas over the years.

Roberto Rossellini's 1954 classic 'Viaggo in Italia (Journey to Italy') with Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders is a great example of how to do it.

However d'Arcy's effort comes up woefully short.

While it is a relief not to see Neeson running about punching, stabbing and shooting other characters, that is hardly an asset.

Long may he continue to take on non violent roles but please find him the right vehicle and the right director.

('Made in Italy' was released in select cinemas in the US on August 7, 2020 and was released on Amazon Prime in the UK and Ireland on March 26, 2021)

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