The Regular Wife and I went to the Milwaukee Film Festival last night, which is fast becoming one of our favorite annual events. The movie we saw was an Italian comedy-drama called The First Beautiful Thing, about a misanthropic teacher who returns home when his crazy/beautiful mother is dying of cancer. Most of the movie is told in flashbacks to when the teacher was a boy and his mother a mystery -- ditzy, beautiful, possibly a prostitute, struggling to keep her children fed and clothed, constantly dissembling. All of the performances were wonderful, particularly by the young actress you plays the mother to the hilt, Micaela Ramazzotti, shown above.
Here's the trailer for the film, in case it's something you might want to download at some point. A really beautiful movie.
