The most hysterical and moving film I've ever seen

Rating: 10/10 (6 August 2000)

Before I saw "Life is Beautiful", I had never before cried over a movie. That changed as soon as the credits began to roll. My friend and I looked at each other slack-jawed, and tears welled up in both of our eyes. Roberto Begnini was perfect and definitely deserved his Best Actor Oscar. All I can say is that "Shakespeare in Love" must have been pretty darn good if it beat this film in Best Picture.
**Spoilers ahead! Read only if you want to know more about the movie's plot.
This movie took me by surprise, as the first half of it was nothing like the second. It began as an immensely clever comedy about an Jewish waiter's everyday life in the 1930's . This went on for about twenty minutes. Then, it turned into a romance in which just about every word from those first twenty minutes came back to the viewer for a great joke. This went on for about thirty minutes. Time passes, and the waiter is married to his sweetheart and has a young son. It isn't long, however, before the Third Reich comes for him and his family and puts them in a concentration camp. The rest of the movie is wonderful, but in a different way. It is about Begnini protecting his son's innocence from the horrors of the concentration camp. It still has some funny parts - Begnini's translation of the rules of the camp when they first arrive was fantastic - but is mostly very serious, as you would expect a Nazi movie to be. The last shot of Begnini was beautiful, perhaps the most beautiful of the movie. I know you'll agree when you see it.