The prevailing image of young womanhood typically evokes feminine camaraderie: Sleepovers spent strengthening bonds of sisterhood, balmy summer days consisting of aimless walks and pointed conversations, late-night phone calls filled with good advice and goofy observations. As far as pop culture is concerned, the act of becoming a woman is far from a solitary one – we learn to assume this role by observing the transformations that our mothers, sisters and friends routinely undergo, and by bouncing our own tentative trajectories (physical, romantic, emotional) off of each other.
What happens when a young woman doesn’t have the requisite female friendships and matriarchal connections to help her navigate the threshold that exists between girlish adolescence and feminine maturity? Italian writer-director Carolina Cavalli (who previously wrote the screenplay for Sundance critical darling Fremont, whose director Babak Jalali now serves as her editor) provides such an example with absurdist levity and probing earnestness in Amanda, her directorial feature debut.
The title character (rousingly played by Benedetta Porcaroli) is a socially adrift 24-year-old girl staying at her parent’s family home in suburban Italy. The true definition of a NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training), she kills time during uneventful days by going to the local moviehouse and fostering one-sided crushes with lanky local alt boys. Despite being a thin, conventionally attractive woman, she can’t help but repel men and women alike, by possessing decidedly un-feminine traits: She’s brusque, boasts a lumbering gait and is prone to inelegant, expletive-laden outbursts (most often at her family’s dinner table). The only person she considers a friend is her lifelong nanny, who was recently commanded by Amanda’s posh mother (Monica Nappo) to distance herself so that her daughter can meet people her own age. When Viola (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), the mother of Amanda’s now-estranged childhood playmate, shows up at the house one day, she insists that her daughter Rebecca (doe-eyed, alluring newcomer Galatéa Bellugi) would love to reconnect. Initially resistant to the idea, Amanda decides that forging a female friendship might be the only thing that elevates her out of her festering pit of loserdom so that she can finally secure a boyfriend. What she doesn’t expect, however, is that Rebecca is perhaps even more isolated and reclusive than she is, and as a result intensely opposed to Amanda’s offer of friendship. The two eventually warm up to each other, but neither necessarily serve as a model of aspirational femininity. Obviously, being socially maligned together is preferable to treading the icy waters of encroaching adulthood alone.
The film’s singular brand of humor is one of its most successful virtues, delivered with deadpan poise by all parties. Sparse but effective visual gags heighten certain interactions, especially one between Amanda and a local grocery clerk. Vying for a store promotion of a free (with purchase) oscillating fan to boost her non-existent income, the clerk informs her that the fan is only eligible for redemption with 100 store points (essentially a $100 purchase). “That’s a lot of points,” Amanda murmurs. “For 20 points you could get Buston, the stuffed dolphin,” offers the employee. “But be aware that some batches have their eyes coming off.” After cutting to a reverse-shot of Amanda’s blank face, the scene cuts again to a gray-walled room where Buston sits on a prop Greek column, equally adorable and pathetic in his cutesiness. In essence, the dichotomy between these supermarket “freebies” also exemplify the frustration of Amanda’s idealized self and her current identity – the fan is practical and sleek, while Buston is winsome at a glance, but on the brink of physical wonkiness and, in the end, serves no tangible purpose in its environment.
Yet all of the film’s best laughs come from a place of wry observance; comedic dialogue between Amanda and her overly-critical older sister Marina (Margherita Missoni) teem with petty, out-of-pocket remarks that suggest neither party is as worthy of sympathy or scrutiny as the other believes. “I know it’s a horrible thing to say, but sometimes I wish you had a small but grueling real problem,” jabs Marina. After she recounts her own “real problem” related to Stella, her musically gifted young daughter who nonetheless needs a support teacher at school, Amanda snaps. “Maybe you are the problem. One day Stella will play at the Royal Albert Hall and I will deserve to be there. And you? You’ll be stuck at an event of pharmacists married to other pharmacists with your pharmacist second-born, who still looks like a blonde potato.” In response, Marina purrs, “I just hope Stella doesn’t grow up like you.”
In truth, this exchange is equal-opportunity hilarity: Amanda does live a life created by sheltered privilege, her distaste for work or other higher pursuits a uniquely upper-class conundrum. Meanwhile, Marina’s miserable work ethic already threatens the future passions of her children, and seeing a rebellious kernel of Amanda in her own daughter will no doubt make her work twice as hard to snuff that out in her son. They are both toxically ordinary, neither even close to embodying the martyrdom of Christ, a figure who Stella is also puzzlingly obsessed with despite the family’s secular strain of wealthy liberalism. (Considering the circumstances behind familial conflict here, go figure.)
Amanda may be predicated on so-called “rich people problems,” but that doesn’t make the heart of the film any less compelling. Cavalli’s directorial eye is as strong as her writer’s wit, a combination that makes for an unusually assured debut. Lightly mocking the plight of the wealthy also offers genuine examinations of work, womanhood and mental crisis, particularly as it pertains to the film’s open-ended opening scene that offers a glimpse into Amanda’s childhood development. A grounded survey of waning girlhood that also features streaks of satire, Amanda miraculously finds something original to add to the coming-of-age movie conversation. It helps that the film’s visual flourishes (lensed by DP Lorenzo Levrini) are captivating in their own right while refusing to over-romanticize the rural and brutalist Italian sprawl of this setting that’s a far cry from the Italian fantasy of Rome or Naples. That would be the “Americanized” version, per Amanda’s half-baked (but ultimately on the money) observation.
Director: Carolina Cavalli
Writer: Carolina Cavalli
Starring: Benedetta Porcaroli, Galatéa Bellugi, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Michele Bravi, Monica Nappo, Margherita Missoni
Release Date: July 7, 2023
Natalia Keogan is Filmmaker Magazine’s web editor, and regularly contributes freelance film reviews here at Paste. Her writing has also appeared in Blood Knife Magazine, SlashFilm and Daily Grindhouse, among others. She lives in Queens with her large orange cat. Find her on Twitter @nataliakeogan