Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

There is no doubt that Gianni Amelio is an important filmmaker, and The Keys to the House, with all its flaws, stands as an important film. Rather than taking up film with long scenic shots for aesthetic's sake, or artsy shots for art's sake, Amelio builds this film around its strongest assets - namely, the story and its central characters.

Plot
A father meets his disabled son for the first time 15 years after his birth. He is a young, handsome appliance repairman with a new wife and new baby, saddled with the indelible guilt of abandoning his son to relatives after the mother dies in childbirth. With a new family, he is blessed with so many things he left behind, inspiring him to take time away from that family to accompany his son to Germany for a daunting medical procedure. The father has an immediate affection for his lost son and truly becomes a father throughout the course of the film.

His son's resiliance borders on heroism and Andrea Rossi's debut is absolutely unforgettable. At times he can allow himself to take comfort in his father's arms, or laugh, or talk about his penpal amor. Many times though, he is unable to shake his habit of going it alone. When he shuns his new father, or suddenly runs away to find his way home alone, you have the sense that he does it as much for his father as for himself. He knows he is difficult to love because his road is ultimately his own and the challenges that lie ahead as an adult with a disability will be even more difficult to bear than those he faced as a child. Yet, he has never needed a father more than now - on this edge of boyhood before he becomes a man.

The father meets a kind of mentor in this process of falling in love with and advocating for his handicapped son. Charlotte Rampling plays the mother of handicapped daughter who is just a little older than his son, and she does so with a smoldering strength and calm.

I love this movie, even though I didn't want to at first. Amelio tucks away metaphors in the most unassuming scenes, such as when Andrea runs away from the basketball court and his father is consumed with disbelief and fear that his son would do this after they'd worked so hard to be close. A disabled boy in a wheelchair runs circles around an able-bodied boy who literally keeps running into a wall while running for the ball. The device is perfectly placed, and brief.

You'll know your heart is seeped in this father-son love story when the father types up a love letter from his son to a young beautiful "girlfriend" living in Norway. The father even takes his son to Norway to meet the girl (who never shows) and the scene becomes a great a love scene between father and son. The father's love and playfulness erases any sting of rejection.

The American in me just wishes the ending were clearer. Perhaps I missed something. . .It's also a shame that the title doesn't translate well in English. It may not jump off the shelves like it should simply because of the poor title.

This movie is in Italian with clearly legible white English subtitles.

Based on the novel, "Born Twice," by Giuseppe Pontiggia

Release Date
December 2004
June 2005 (DVD)

Studio
Lions Gate Films

Runtime
147 min.

Director
Gianni Amelio

Screenwriter
Gianni Amelio, Sandro Petraglia, Stefano Rulli

Cast
Kim Rossi Stuart (Pinocchio, Le Rouge et la Noir)
Charlotte Rampling (Basic Instinct 2, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead)
Andrea Rossi (debut)

Awards
Cinema Avvenire
Pasinetti Award
Sergio Trasatti Award for Best Film

My Movie Reviews:
Edges of the Lord
The Greatest Game Ever Played
The Dresser
The Return




Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good Date Movie
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older