Caterina in the Big City

I was fond of Caterina in the Big City, however there were portions of this movie that were difficult to sit through because you felt embarrassed just as an observer. The class discussion had mentioned the scene with Giancarlo making a foole of himself on tv (hell yeah I spelled fool with an e, thats just how I roll), which was bad but for me the most embarrassing was when he was trying to "hang" with Margherita and either didn't get or ignored the awkwardness that this caused for Caterina. God that scene was painful on so many levels, besides the awkward sensation from lack of trying to rid yourself of your parents and still be respectful, but the embarrassment of have your parent trying really hard to relate to you, especially painful as a young teen. For me this movie was also an odd mix of political message and coming of age movie, the best way my brain could resolve this concept was to think of it as Mean
girls meets Fox News. I can't think of a mainstream American film with nearly as political a message without being a documentary, the only thing I can come up with off the top of my head is The American President and in that movie politics work more as an oposing force to the romance between Michael Douglas and Annette Bening. I will say that I feel this movie wrapped up nicely, it wasn't the relistic which usually bugs me but they were able to somehow justify it and make it work. It wasn't quite a hallmark ending in the amount of cornball present but it was just corny enough to be a happy ending, and I think the thing that kept it from being completely cheesy was that instead of changing and reconciling their problems through some miracle fix, they all ended up doing what was best for themselves, Giancarlo's ending being the most amusing.