If You Loved La Strada.......

Rating: Null/10 (13 December 2019)

God, I just LOVE this film......it's a 10 in crazy funny, a 10 in heart-wrenching pathos, AND a 10 in GREAT MUSIC! How could Woody go wrong.....he basically re-made his idol, Federico Fellini's 1954 masterpiece, "La Strada." He changed the setting and the characters' identities....but the plot is quite close throughout. And Samantha Morton truly channels "Gelsomina" from the Fellini classic, impish sweetness and all. Woody drops in, now and then, to explain how his character, Emmet Ray (is he real or isn't he?) hero-worships his contemporanious idol, Django Rheinhardt. It seems Ray is the SECOND greatest guitar player in the world (after Django). And smooth be is, behind the guitar, yet in every other setting he more resembles early klutzy Woody, but with an edge.