Disappointing

Rating: Null/10 (19 November 1999)

Normally, I'm an incredibly easy mark for films that feature heavy doses of sentiment, abiding love, and the like. I can cry at the first gush of bathetic melodrama. This film, though, disappointed me thoroughly.
I managed a few tears at the very end, and there were a few scenes that touched me in other ways, but, on balance, I thought the movie drastically short-changed the subject matter. Conditions in the concentration camp there depicted were dismal but essentially benign as compared to the reality; the earlier part of the film was unconvincing, almost slapstick in nature.
Much, much better was the treatment in an autobiographical film by Primo Levi that I saw a few months ago...I can't remember its name, but it was about an Italian Jew (Levi) released from a concentration camp at war's end, and his long, winding trip home from Germany to Italy by way of eastern Europe. It was much more real -- much more compelling from beginning to end.
"Life is Beautiful" was an original and somewhat startling idea for a film, and perhaps in better hands it could have been as wonderful a story as some people think this film actually was. On balance, though, I think the idea just couldn't work in execution.