A mysterious woman wanders the streets of Manhattan in a confused state. Finding herself inexplicably drawn to a group of teenagers she embarks on an adventure with them through the cityscape and into the unknown. As the night progresses, she approaches something intangible on the journey back to herself.
Joshua Astrachan Tim Headington Vanessa Kirby Andrea Roa Lia Buman Jamund Washington Brad Becker-Parton Gabby Green Maria Zuckerman Ryan Heller Jason Reif
이탈리안 스터디스
A dreamy lark of a movie shot piecemeal between July 2018 and April of the following year, Adam Leon’s “Italian Studies” may be set along (and expertly stolen from) the crowded sidewalks of London and New York, but it’s unmistakably suffused with the woozy dislocation and “we have to make something” life-force of a COVID film. No one is wearing masks or social distancing in the heat of lower Manhattan on a summer afternoon, yet Leon’s heroine — a successful author played by Vanessa Kirby at a time just before people on the street would recognize her as one of the gutsiest actresses of her generation, or as anyone at all — is lost in a fugue state that vividly…
vignettes exhibited throughout the 80-minute runtime are several amalgamations of passages from Alina’s (Vanessa Kirby) stories and memories that suddenly became lost. they reveal little about the character, about her creating inevitable relationships, about isolated survival or about anything at all. There's no driving force for the story to be interesting and it ultimately fails to express these moments as significant chapters that shaped her life once upon a time.
this is a film that follows a person who struggles to regain her memories and identity as it matches the end result that is equally disorienting and lost.
this guy knows what i’m talking about
I could not engage with this at all due to its strangely loose narrative structure, or rather its nearly complete lack of a narrative. The aesthetic is pleasing and the young actors in the film were all incredibly talented and effervescent, especially Simon Brickner. I honestly would have preferred a film that was just about the kids because Vanessa Kirby hanging around them was just odd. Not entirely sure what the film was going for at all and, if I’m being honest, it was a struggle to finish.
Tribeca Watch #5
Vanessa Kirby is a beautiful creature. It's pretty neat to see her walking around NY for an hour talking to strangers.
"My boyfriend is gluten intolerant but otherwise very tolerant as a person" -Weird Fan,
-2021 Ranked: boxd.it/aL2Ys
Hmm....
I just couldn't get into this. It's a vibey, meandering film that tries to capture the whimsy and disorientation of an unplanned urban adventure but feels a little too #deep for my sensibilities. I don't hate the cinematography and Vanessa Kirby's performance but I did kind of hate the script as a whole.
Not for me.
someone tell filmmakers they can’t just record people walking and call it cinema
A dissociating Vanessa Kirby wanders around New York City in Adam Leon's intriguing, but disappointing drama Italian Studies. There's so much potential in this story to go further into the realms of psychological drama, but what happens is that Leon chooses to wander around just like his protagonist Alina Reynolds. Alina (Kirby) is a writer who loses her memory one day in NYC, and attempts to find her way home. While she struggles to remember anything, she befriends a group of teenagers and converse in real and imagined scenarios. As fascinating as the premise, Kirby lays her magnetic presence in a character whose existence and surprising malady are a mystery to her own. But the writing is so underdeveloped, which leaves Kirby searching for answers. Overall, Italian Studies is a faulty experiment with so much potential wasted.
Narratively a bit too abstract for me to really dig into fully. I had a similar experience to Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy. What worked there, and here in Adam Leon’s Italian Studies, is that the visual aesthetic and scoring create an almost mystical atmosphere, a lullaby of half finished thoughts, intangible musings, and comforting unknowns.
Vanessa Kirby does marvelous work here with her leading role, despite my feeling just as confused as her character does. The exploration of teenage creativity, artistic discovery, and authentic personification of one’s thoughts is gorgeous and easily the highlight of the project. In a lot of ways, I find the film may have worked a bit better had it focused on its young side characters rather than Kirby’s entanglement with them.
Tribeca Film Festival Watch #9
Una mujer que pierde la memoria en las calles de NYC y trata reencontrarse con si misma, conociendo personas random y demas cosas.
Por Vanessa Kirby vale ver todo. Hace una muy buena actuación acá como siempre.
