The Sicilian Girl

Diary of a Vengeful Kid

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Starring: Veronica D’Agostino, Gerard Jugnot

By Robert Patrick

“The Sicilian Girl” has me rubbing my temple in confusion. The film’s story, one of linear Mafioso roots, isn’t too perplexing by any means. A girl witnesses her father’s death, wails in agony, pumps her fist in an obligatory and ubiquitous cry of vengeance. If you are confounded by this, you probably haven’t seen too many crime films. You are a n00b. In “The Sicilian Girl” a town is held by the plump fingers of Don Salvo, a nefarious and portly figure who shifts in the shadows and presumably eats a lot of food. Everyone is scared of him, unwilling to pry themselves loose of this magnate of death. The guy even kills farmers because they wont move off his land; this after the family had taken care of his property for thirty-years! Why I oughtta!

One girl (the Sicilian girl) decides that, after her brother and father have been snuffed out like a bad cigar, she will take up arms against the puttering Don Salvo. How will she do this? By letting the head of police read her diaries that she had kept for a seven-year period. In the scribbled journals she details the murderous activities of the Salvo clan, her love for spelling words with marinara sauce (she does this earlier in the film), and other terrible breaches of morality. “She was a mole all of this years,” says the fussy police inspector, “and she didn’t even know it!” What the Sicilian girl does know, however, is how to scrunch her face at every opportunity. Man, this actress can furrow the living hell out of her brow. Two-year old throwing a tantrum verses Sicilian girl? Sicilian girl wins.

I also love this film because the lighting department looks like they were inspired by the movie “Pitch Black”. Why does Don Salvo’s lair look like it has less light than the Batcave during a power outage? I can only imagine that the bad guys in this movie are vampires or owl hybrids. Yeah, this movie has a real sloppy crew. The direction is also in a disarray. When action transpires, everything looks choppy and practically out of the frame – and when I say action, I mean someone walking briskly. I haven’t seen any of Marco Amenta’s films before, but “The Sicilian Girl” certainly isn’t a good introduction.

The acting is also pretty suspect. None of the players in this film look like they’re believing the emotions that they are portraying. I can imagine the director telling one of the cast members to look upset, then having the actor in question begin to flail wildly not unlike a first year theater student. Yeah, my criticisms are pretty subtle. For all of my critical rue, the plot is not all that bad, only tired and redundant, even if the film really is based on a true story (your true story is a lacking one).

I wouldn’t recommend “The Sicilian Girl” for the fact that I don’t like my reader(s) to be gnashing their teeth out of boredom. If you really want to slip into a hearty sort of sleep, where you’re mouth is sucking down z’s like Jello shots, you can rent this when it comes out on video and use the subtitles as proverbial sheep to count as you lie in bed.

2/5

Author: Rob Patrick

The program director of the Olympia Film Society, Rob is also a former San Diego Film Critics Society member. He has written for The East County Californian, The Alpine Sun, The East County Herald, The San Diego Entertainer, and the San Diego Reader. When he isn't curating a film festival, he is drinking rosé out of a plastic cup in Seattle or getting tattoos from Jenn Champion.

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