Directed by Emma Dante
Written by Emma Dante, Giorgio Vasta, Elena Stancanelli, based on a play by Emma Dante
Starring Donatella Finocchiario, Viola Pusateri, Serena Borone, Simona Malato, Laura Giordani
Runtime: 1 hour 29 minutes
Language: Italian
Available to watch in select theaters August 27

by Audrey Callerstrom, Assistant Editor & Staff Writer

The Macaluso Sisters introduces us to a world where five young sisters live together in a quirky manner. They breed doves which they rent out to people for weddings. The whereabouts of their parents are never mentioned, although presumably they died and the daughters inherited the house. It takes some time to identify who-is-who. The eldest (I think?) is Maria (Eleonora De Luca, above, second-from-left) a voice of reason who spends the summer flirting and exchanging kisses in secret with another young woman. The next in line is Puniccia (Ileana Rigano, on the right), who spends lots of time perfecting her lipstick in the mirror in order to attract boys. Lia (Maria Rosaria Alati, second from right), the middle child, is quiet and angsty. Katia (Alissa Maria Orlando, left) is portly and whiny, and the youngest, Antonella (Viola Pusateri, center) is sweet and quiet. The sisters all plan an outing to the Charleston restaurant, which is proximate to a ritzy beach where young people like to swim. The sisters sneak under the bridge in order not to pay the entrance fee.

There is an electric energy to the beach scenes. Young people in colorful bathing suits dance along the beach as if they were in a musical. Nearby, Maria is helping a young woman prepare for an outdoor showing of Back to the Future. But a tragedy occurs, and sirens sound on the beach. Rather than address what happened, the film needlessly jumps ahead roughly 20(?) years into the future. Just as we were beginning to tell the sisters apart, suddenly they’re in their 30s and 40s. And yet again, we need to figure out who-is-who. It’s disorienting and it takes you out of the story to have to do all this work as a viewer. Not to mention that Lia, the middle child, is suddenly much older than her sisters. There isn’t much story to speak of – the sisters have grown up and they are generally portrayed as sad people, still fighting over “that day” and who was at fault. There is little love between these sisters, even though the early scenes suggest a close bond. A dinner scene where the sisters fight and shout is needlessly punctuated by the fluttering of doves.

I suspect that Emma Dante, who directed this film and wrote the play that it’s based on, made exactly the film she set out to make. Performances are good, and it’s clever how each character has a distinct feature or trait so you can tell who-is-who when the time jump occurs. Puniccia has distinct moles on her face; Lia often reads out loud as a way to calm herself. But after every moment that supposedly has dramatic weight, such as a fight or when the audience learns something new, I wondered, so what? None of these sisters feel particularly distinct from each other. All start as happy children and grow into miserable adults. I am not an audience member who needs someone to “root for” in every film. But we need something to hold onto, something that feels like a real response, or makes someone feel like a living, breathing person. Someone for us to care about. A main character. It seems like that might be Maria, but that’s not really the case. We don’t know her any more than we know the others.

There are moments when, taken out of context, might even seem laughable. Take, for example, the scene where Maria is dancing and weeping on the side of a reservoir as she walks to meet her sisters. It feels dramatically superfluous and nearly silly. And to call this moment laughable seems insensitive given the material. Another singular take shows a sister devouring desserts, and the scene goes on for an agonizing length of time. This film is about family and grief and how grief stays with us, in our bodies, through the decades. But again, there’s nothing here to hold on to, no clear message. Does Dante favor a particular character? Is one perhaps based on Dante? They all feel like loose sketches. They talk about deep subjects, but it feels impersonal and false. It does work as a stage adaptation, as much of the scenes take place in the home with the doves. It doesn’t feel claustrophobic, and it doesn’t do what many other stage adaptations do, which is take a conversation that started at home and move it randomly to the supermarket. What The Macaluso Sisters desperately needs is more weight to these characters, or some sort of parental figure that oversees this family. What we get is a dull film that is about grief for grief’s sake.