Customer Reviews

Bread and Tulips (Widescreen)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

At first the movie got off to a slow start, but then once new characters became invovled in the plot, things started to change for the protagonist.

The movie is a cross between Desparately Seeking Susan with Madonna and Just Married...

At parts you will be waiting for the ending to come, which you know what it is.
This movie examines Italian machismo and makes an interesting statement by staying that Fernando is the man for her. Fernando, is not like her husband or sons, because he was changed by his experience in jail. Hmm, is this a commentary saying that men will only be decent to women once they are punished for their behavoir?? Maybe I'm pulling too much out of this one!

It's nto as funny for the American audience, I did not find more than maybe one moment as funny. The movie has some odd parts and it is incredible to think how Fernando would let her stay with him so long...

It's worth seeing, but maybe just once.

Was unable to see it on my DVD player. I have to convert the DVD from European to American.
When I purchased the item I expected the supplier to do the conversion for me. They knew they were shipping it to Canada or at least inform the buyer.

This film is part fantasy, part romantic comedy, part mid-life crisis, and part journey of self discovery, but completely enjoyable. The main character is truly lovable. I have lent this movie to friends that have differing tastes than mine, yet they all enjoyed it.

Maybe I can't appreciate Bread and Tulips because I am not a middle-aged housewife. I found the film slow, overlong, boring, and pointless. I could not feel any sympathy for the main character, therefore I couldn't like her, which made me dislike the film itself. How can I like someone who leaves her family for no reason to start a new life just for the hell of it. I didn't understand what motivated this character to do what she did or why she didn't even care to find out how her children are doing. Yes, her husband was a pig and didn't deserve her, but what fault do the children have? She was a distant and unlikeable woman who didn't even seem to realize how serious her actions were. The ending was absolutely ridiculous and I was fuming and impatient for the film to end by the time the credits started to roll! Not only does her so-called real love, a man old enough to be her father, drive from Venice to claim her, but he somehow seems to know that she would be at the supermarket in the middle of the day, bringing the film to an end ridiculous even by cheesy American romance standards. This film was recommended to me as a lighthearted comedy, but I didn't laugh once. In fact, I am baffled at all these five star reviews because this film was so awful. The more I think about it, the more I realize how much I hated it. Maybe it was just so overrated that I expected something more, but aside from the gorgeous setting, there is absolutely nothing in this for me to recommend it.

"Bread and Tulips," Silvio Soldini's gently hilarious comedy, allows viewers to revel in a lovely story about the renewal of life and hope. It bears some resemblance to "Under the Tuscan Sun," but benefits from a stronger story and more fully realized characters. It also has some similarities to David Lean's "Summertime"--another beloved movie about a middle-aged woman finding romance in Venice--but the mood in "Bread and Tulips" is more sweet than bittersweet. Rosalba (Licia Maglietta), a bored housewife, is left behind on vacation with her crabby family when their tour bus leaves without her. Rather than going straight home to Pescara on the Abruzzi coast, she decides on a whim to head up to Venice, where she has never been. From there on in, the movie is very much about the renewal of the spirit--not only Rosalba's, but also that of Fernando (Bruno Ganz), the romantic restaurateur who falls for Rosalba, and Constantino (Giuseppe Battiston), the tubby, sad-sack plumber who reluctantly spies on Rosalba as a prerequisite for getting a job from Rosalba's bossy husband. These three actors give delightful performances, as do the other players in this quirky romantic comedy. Particularly enjoyable for American audiences is that Soldini places us in a Venice rarely seen in the tourist brochures. San Marco and other wonders are seen only in passing; most of the action takes place in Venice's back streets, among the rainbow-hued houses, tiny fountain-centered courtyards, and toy bridges crossing narrow canals. The photography is lovely, and looks sensational in the DVD transfer. "Bread and Tulips" is a two-hour vacation in a sweeter, gentler world.

This is a beautiful movie. I just love it. I first saw it at the COPIA - The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts in Napa Valley, CA. After that viewing I ran out and bought the DVD. It is one of the most often viewed DVDs in my collection.

The story of "Bread and Tulips" has been told before in the movies and will be told again. A bored, underappreciated housewife escapes her life and finds true love away from the hearth and home. But the movie tells it very well and the actors make you believe in the possibility of life beginning anew.

Licia Maglietta plays an Italian wife on holiday with her husband and two boys. When she misses the bus from the petrol stop, her husband gets on the mobile and yells at her. She decides to hitchhike to catch up to them...and then on a whim ends up hitchiking to Venice, where she has never been.

And her life begins...in short order, she ends up with a room in the apartment of a kindly waiter with a sad history (he's suicidal when we first meet him), a job with a florist/anarchist, a friend in the form of her neighbor "a holistic masseuse." She blossoms into a beauty throughout the movie as her many gifts (kindness, wit, love) are recognized by those around her. Meanwhile her family misses her working for them-her husband finds out that his mistress is unwilling to iron his shirts-and wants her back. Her husband, too cheap to hire a real detective, insteads sends a prospective employee (a plumber by training) to find her. This portly character, who has read about 200 too many detective novels, injects tremendous humor into the movie.
The movie has many small charms. Though it is shot in Venice, the director only shows typical "beauty" shots in passing. The beauty of the city to the heroine occurs in the small shops and apartments of her newfound life. The acting, particularly of Maglietta, is profound and touching.

I would recommend this movie to those who like romances and foreign, art house films. A warning: it is both the ultimate chick flick and in Italian (with English subtitles). That alone may turn off a number of filmgoers. But if you're taste runs to this genre, well then you're in for a treat.

Venice never looked so good as it does here in Silvio Soldini's "Bread and Tulips." While the title loses a little something in the translation (in Italian, it's the cute and somewhat alliterative "Pane e Tulipani"), the slowly developing relationship between leads Licia Maglietta ("Rosalba") and Bruno Ganz ("Fernando") does not.

Despite the fact that the former starts out as a repressed, fed-up housewife and the latter as a brink-of-suicide waiter, the relationship is coaxed along so carefully and realistically by Soldini that it never feels fake or forced. Of course, it doesn't hurt that Maglietta is a breathtakingly vivacious (at the time) 46-year-old and the then-59-year-old Ganz is cut from the Terence Stamp school of on-screen magnetism.

Reading English subtitles has never been so effortless as it is here. The lyrical Italian sounds like a wonderfully comforting soundtrack. Don't waste this movie watching it alone. This is a great way to spend two hours with your significant other.

A thoroughly charming romantic comedy from Italy. Rosalba (Licia Maglietta), a housewife who has been taken for granted by her family, finds herself separated from them when they forget her at a rest stop. Not even realizing what she is doing at first, she takes the opportunity to hitchhike to Venice and enjoy a hiatus from her dissatisfying life. Before long, she has a job in a florist's shop and has encountered an endearingly quirky cast of characters-a melancholy waiter (Bruno Ganz), a goofy masseuse (Marina Massironi), and the amateur detective who has been sent by her husband to find her (Giuseppe Battiston).

This film could have easily become too cloying or self-consciously cute. It avoids these pitfalls by employing a marvelous cast. The script (Doriana Leondeff) and direction (Silvio Soldini) focus on the humanity of the characters rather than superficial eccentricities that are meant to emphasize the whimsical nature of the story.

this was a cool lite film that dealt with some interesting subject matter about Happiness&Love.I've seen other films in the same vein so I wasn't blown away.but it works.it has a nice charm to it.