Cinema has never been Benigni's best activity: this film stands as a confirmation

Rating: 4/10 (12 February 1999)

Worrying enough, Benigni shows once more he's one of the greatest theatre comedians around, but hasn't a great feeling with the big screen. He hasn't shot a lot, actually, nevertheless I can remember but one really good film by great Roberto ("Tu mi turbi", that is), while "La vita è bella", though widely hyped, is no better than "Il piccolo diavolo". The film is a comedy, though tragic. Or a tragedy, though comic. God, my head aches! It is an appreciable, though missed, attempt to mix the tragedy of the German WWII lagers, with the comic efforts of a father trying to save his child's ingenuity from the worldly ugliness. Two intentions too noble to fit in a bare one-hundred minutes film which is heavy where it should be light and vice versa. Get back to theatre, Roberto, and don't worry: nobody's perfect.