(Viaggio Sola) Maria Sole Tognazzi’s slow-to-warm “A Five Star Life” is plush with swank, following Irene Lorenzi (Margherita Buy), a high-minded “mystery guest” around the world, a wandering critic of luxury hotels and resorts on what appears to be a well-furnished yet peripatetic, aimless voyage through life, as well as Berlin, Rome, Marrakech… Crises intervene for the single woman in her forties, near-existential crises rise from the high thread-count sheets. The minutiae of how she checks off the virtues of each establishment takes up a big chunk of the movie, likely more fascinating to someone who’s interested in the depiction of process (like me). Still, its quiet surfaces made for a substantial hit at home in Italy. With Lesley Manville, Bruno Wolkowitch and Stefano Accorsi as Irene’s kindly ex-boyfriend. 85m. (Ray Pride)
“A Five Star Life” opens Friday, September 5 at the Music Box.
Ray Pride is Newcity’s film critic and a contributing editor to Filmmaker magazine.
His multimedia history of Chicago “Ghost Signs” will be published soon. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram as Ghost Signs Chicago. More photography on Instagram.
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