The most remarkable thing about the day-brightening Danish confection Italian For Beginners is that it's a light-hearted romance from a heavy-hearted "collective" of European filmmakers.
That would be Dogme 95, the movement that gave us Lars Von Trier and an organization that requires its filmmakers to sign an anti-Hollywood manifesto before giving films their stamp of approval.
So how did this one slip by? Italian For Beginners is so conventional a story of people-who-are-meant-for-each-other-but-don't-know-it-yet that it could easily be remade as a Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan movie.
About the only European notion of defying the Hollywood ethos it displays is in its handheld-camerawork. And the funny part of that is that handheld cameras are, in fact, a Hollywood cliche. Have these people never seen an episode of ER?
Anyway, shhh. Don't tell them they made an enjoyably frothy "date movie," otherwise they won't do it again.
Set during a bleak Copenhagen winter, Italian For Beginners revolves around six single thirtysomethings who bond under the aegis of a nightschool Italian course -- the romance language warming their hearts to a low boil. There's Andreas (Anders W. Berthelsen), a widowed minister who inherits the congregation of his bitter, atheistic predecessor and who begins falling for Olympia (Anette Stovelbaek), a klutzy pastry shop clerk who is secretly the sister of the vivacious Karen (Ann Eleonora Jorgensen) who has it bad for bad-boy Hal-Finn (Lars Kaalund).
There's also milquetoast hotel manager Jorgen Mortensen (Peter Gantzler), a man with an, um, "performance" problem and the most hopeless Italian student -- ironic since he's in love with Italian waitress Giuilia (Sara Indrio Jensen) who speaks hardly any Danish. She's in love with him too, natch.
The catalyst to this virtual volley of Cupid's arrows is the heart attack death of the Italian instructor -- a tragedy that forces everyone to take stock of what the course means to them. It also leads top-student Hal-Finn to take over the course, and by extension the love lives of his friends.
Apropos of nothing at this point, did you know that Danes don't call their pastry a Danish? According to the subtitles, people keep ordering "rum Danish" from Olympia, yet the word never crosses anyone's lips. It's like Canadian bacon, I suppose. Anyway, I digress. It's what you do when a movie romance lulls you into a pleasant reverie.
(This film is rated AA)
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