Certificate: 15
Running Time: 94 mins
UK Distributor: Curzon
WHO’S IN AMANDA?
Benedetta Porcaroli, Galatéa Bellugi, Michele Bravi, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Monica Nappo, Margherita Maccapani Missoni
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Carolina Cavalli (director, writer), Antonio Celsi, Lorenzo Gangarossa, Mario Gianani, Annamaria Morelli, Malcolm Pagani and Moreno Zani (producers), Niccolò Contessa (composer), Lorenzo Levrini (cinematographer), Babak Jalali (editor)
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
A wealthy but aimless young woman (Porcaroli) sets out to find a new best friend…
WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON AMANDA?
Although writer-director Carolina Cavalli’s debut feature Amanda has thus far been compared to the works of Yorgos Lanthimos, Miranda July, Noah Baumbach and fellow Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino (who is even singled out in the credits for his influence), I would put forward the argument that the core inspiration for her film charts much further back to Jane Austen. Specifically speaking, the author’s classic romantic-comedy Emma – which similarly charts a wealthy young woman’s Machiavellian pursuit of matchmaking and companionship – seems to have been heavily remixed to fit the sensibilities of the isolated modern young woman, albeit in quite a different fashion to another present-day adaptation like Clueless.
Funnily enough, “clueless” is the word that best describes the titular character, played by Benedetta Porcaroli of Netflix’s Italian series Baby. She is twenty-five but seems to be permanently stuck in her teens, as she studies a somewhat unsatisfactory course from a small makeshift apartment in Paris, the bills for which are footed by her wealthy family, who apparently gained their riches from a chain of pharmacies. However, her arrested development combined with the lack of sympathy her family gives to her has caused Amanda to have an acute sense of social awkwardness, which has left her with almost no real friends to speak of. Upon hearing that she was once close to another girl named Rebecca (Galatéa Bellugi) before they moved away, Amanda decides that she is still her best friend, despite them having had no contact since childhood.
As it turns out, Rebecca is just as complicated as Amanda is. She is effectively a recluse, refusing to come out of her bedroom even when prompted by her mother Viola (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), who is also a close friend of Amanda’s mother, and is clearly suffering from an unspecified mental condition that she needs intensive therapy for. Unlike Amanda, though, Rebecca is actually getting the help she clearly needs; Amanda, contrarily, has been left to her own devices for so long, with her less concerned family making the bare minimum effort to accommodate her most basic needs, that she hasn’t been given the proper nudge toward secure adulthood, nor toward the ways in which most people in society should behave, which causes her to make uncouth comments and form obsessive attachments to people like how an undeveloped teen would often do.
You may already be pointing out to yourself that there are strong parallels between the titular protagonist of Cavalli’s film, and the one in Jane Austen’s novel. Amanda, like Emma before her, comes from a background of wealth and power, no matter how insignificant it may otherwise be, but her sense of entitlement and deep insecurity about her own prospects in life cause her to lean heavily into her adolescent tendencies, rather than accept the greater responsibilities of adult life. Throughout the film, Amanda manipulates events so that they always work out in her favour, such as drenching some of her own books and then gaslighting Rebecca into thinking she somehow caused it, which lands the result she desired in that the shut-off Rebecca finally lets her within her own boundaries. There is even an effort to acquire her own Mr. Knightley equivalent, mostly by just staring at some nameless guy across a scarcely populated club and deciding that they are now dating, whether he accepts it or not.
With Amanda, Cavalli reframes Austen’s novel through a much more absurdist lens, taking the essential framework of Emma and giving it a deadpan makeover with greater emphasis on the lead character’s arrested development over the more romantic elements. The filmmaker cuts straight through to the quirky but deeply troubled nature of her protagonist, whom Benedetta Porcaroli portrays with a tinge of tragedy as she dryly delivers Cavalli’s witty dialogue, and frames the film as an oddball character study that most viewers can all too knowingly identify with. Hers is a peculiar ode to the classic Austen protagonist, one that swaps corsets and romantic desires for mix-and-match wardrobe styles and a desire to have some kind of direction in life.
Its impassive approach might make it hard for some to develop an actual attachment to this particular story and its set of characters, but the filmmaking style that Cavalli brings here is certainly eye-catching, the performances are tightly wound and eccentric, and it wrestles with themes about adulthood and personal responsibilities that aren’t always followed through – the film ends somewhat abruptly, but on a note that feels appropriate enough for this tale – but are at least touched upon without being made too obvious to the viewer.
The comparisons to other absurdist filmmakers like Lanthimos, July et al are certainly accurate when talking about Cavalli’s Amanda, but it is truly Jane Austen who deserves to be at the forefront of said comparisons.
SO, TO SUM UP…
Amanda is an amusingly absurdist Italian comedy that remixes Jane Austen’s classic novel Emma into a deadpan, but sometimes smarter than it lets on, examination of female arrested development.
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