How can happiness flourish amid domestic chaos and cultural intolerance? Emanuele Crialese’s film “L’immensità” explores a transgender youth’s journey toward acceptance. And now the movie hits US theaters after its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival last year.
Here’s an official synopsis for “L’immensitá”:
Clara and her emotionally distant husband Felice relocate to Rome to raise a family. Even though the paint is fresh, and the appliances are new, the crushing expectations around marriage, desire, and gender in the early 1970s remain as traditional as ever. Their children Andrew, Gino, and Diana are likewise poised at a precipice, on the verge of adolescence, with nothing but their imaginations to defuse family tensions. The eldest child, Andrew (nicknamed Adri by his parents), yearns for another life – an outsized, vibrantly-realized vision of a world where he gets to live as the boy he knows himself to be. Without an accepted vocabulary for talking about his transgender identity, Andrew tells adults that he’s an alien from another galaxy and makes a habit of running away to pursue a local Roma girl who accepts his boyhood at face value. As an outsider ostracized for her own eccentricities, Clara instinctively strives to protect her son despite not fully understanding him. An effortlessly moving film about growing up, fitting in, and breaking the mold, L’immensità is as freewheeling and creative as its central characters, mixing genres and staging musical numbers out of thin air.
Penélope Cruz, Vincenzo Amato, Luana Giuliani, headline the cast of “L’immensitá.” Patrizio Francioni, Maria Chiara Gorett, Penelope Nieto Conti, and Alvia Reale also star. India Santella, Mariangela Granelli, and Valentina CenniIn round out the main cast.
“L’immensitá” debuts in US theaters at New York’s Angelika Film Center and LA’s Laemmle Royal on May 12. Watch a trailer for the film below.