"Fiorile" 

Staring: a lot of Italian people I don't know.

The subtitles translate the name of the movie as "Fiorile". 
Yeah, that helps.

Somewhere in Italy. A man drives the family station wagon down 
a never-ending road, his wife in the passenger seat and two 
kids (one of each) in the back. The boy, in the tradition of 
all children on family vacations in any country, asks 'are we 
there yet?' Apparently, they're going to grandpa's house. They 
stop at a hotel for the night and we get a lingering shot of 
the crest above the front door as the boy stares at it in 
fascination. Do you suppose we'll see it again later? 

Inside, Daddy yammers away on the phone, presumably to a 
business partner or something. He's talking about conversion 
plans and Swedish engineers so it must be work related. He 
mentions that Gramps is out of the hospital. He's a "little 
strange" and Daddy hasn't seen him in ten years. Oy I hate 
expositions. Later, the kids overhear the maids talking about 
Daddy. He married a Frenchwoman and he "doesn't look like his 
father." Fascinating. Mind if I take a nap? They further the 
plot by saying that the happy little family is "the last of 
the Benedettis." Otherwise known as the "accursed Maledettis."

Car. Driving. Daddy says "Maledetti" means "cursed" and this 
all has to do with the "legend of the gold." The little girl 
begs him to tell the story. "Two centuries ago, Napoleon 
Bonaparte's army arrived [here]," he begins. Blah blah, the 
kids look out the window and start actually "seeing" the 
French soldiers marching across the fields. Daddy says they 
had a chest of gold strapped to the back of a mule, guarded by 
a lieutenant known only as Jean. As he says this we zoom in on 
a very young-looking Michael Vartan in full revolutionary era 
clothing and long hair. Sure. He had to have the same name as 
my grandfather (also a Frenchman). The little girl ogles him 
dreamily and says he "was very handsome." Excuse me? She's 
what, eight years old? Shouldn't she still think boys have 
cooties? Daddy asks how the heck she would know that. No, 
wait, that would actually make sense. Really, he says yes, but 
he was also young, stupid and idealistic. At least that's how 
I'm interpreting what he says. Daddy then gives us a big ole 
helping of foreshadowing by informing us that he didn't live 
long. Gee thanks.

We shift completely into the 1700s and go to a nearby house, 
where a pretty woman watches the marching soldiers from a 
window. Actually, she might just be watching Jean. She's 
drooling a bit. Her father asks about someone named "Corrado" 
and, speak of the devil, he bursts in the door and asks if 
they've seen the Frenchmen. Duh. They're apparently incapable 
of marching without singing loud enough to wake the dead. Even 
if they haven't seen them, they've at least *heard* them. Then 
he starts babbling about the French guys cutting off 
noblemen's pigtails and cutting off "something else" if they 
complain. His father says "they should cut yours off too." I 
spew water in the general direction of the television. Corrado 
rolls his eyes and says he meant their heads. Which ones? Hee.

Cut to the French soldiers splashing half-naked in a lake. 
Jean is sitting on dry land, watching. A couple guys try to 
coax him in, but he pantomimes that he needs to keep an eye on 
the donkey. The girl who was watching the soldiers earlier 
wanders by (yeah, I have no idea how she got here or why) and 
is nearly trampled by Tuscan nobles on horseback. Oh yeah, I 
forgot to mention that Daddy said the French soldiers were 
frequently ambushed by Tuscan nobles. Sorry. Jean grabs some 
sort of weapon and runs to help as the soldiers scatter. 
Another soldier tells him to hide the gold/donkey. 

Gunfire. Running. Etc. Jean ties the donkey to a tree. Yeah, 
because that'll do a lot of good. He watches people continue 
scurrying in the distance and walks away, saying "merde", 
which the subtitles translate as "damn it". Cute. As he 
leaves, we pan over to the girl, who is laying by the side of 
the road. We pan back and suddenly Jean is standing next to 
her. What the? Didn't he just go in the other direction? I 
just...whatever. Most of the stuff in this movie doesn't 
really make sense, so I'll just have to go with it.

He finds a wound on her thigh and uses his belt as a 
tourniquet. Unfortunately, he does not use his pants as a 
bandage. Did I mention he's not wearing a shirt in this entire 
scene? Not that I care because it's obvious he wasn't working 
out as much then. He has no muscle whatsoever. Anyway, the 
girl wakes up to find him staring at her, which is just creepy 
regardless of how cute he may be. She starts to run away but 
doesn't get far thanks to the injury. She sees the belt and 
asks if he did that. He has no idea what she's saying because 
she's speaking Italian and he's speaking French. She giggles 
and kisses his hand in what I assume is some sort of gesture 
of gratitude. Then there's a weird moment where he kisses her 
hand back like some sort of hornball trapped in the body of a 
blushing schoolboy. I cringe.

The scene gets even weirder (if that's possible) when some guy 
shows up with a gun and she acts like she knows him. He says 
he's dying but he doesn't want to die alone. I'm completely 
confused. Jean stands in front of her and turns his back on 
the guy until he goes away. I just now noticed that his tattoo 
is missing. Does that date this movie or what? Nice ponytail, 
by the way. What the hell was the point of this whole sequence 
again? The girl says "he wanted to kill us". Honey, if he 
really did, you'd be dead by now. She starts crying 
hysterically anyway. Jean tries to calm her down and they, 
naturally, end up kissing and groping each other. 

Meanwhile, Corrado is stealing the donkey. He sees the couple 
in the distance...well, he sees Jean and his sister's hand 
playing with Jean's hair. Jean sees him and Corrado makes 
apologetic gestures. The hand drags Jean down and out of view. 
Heh. I guess he's completely forgotten he was supposed to be 
keeping an eye on that donkey. Sigh. Men. Always thinking with 
the wrong body part.

Later, Corrado breaks open the chest and finds it full of gold 
coins. He calls his mother to come take a look at it and she 
flips out and tells him to put it back where he found it. But 
don't do it now. Wait until night. Yeah. Then she stares at 
the gold, practically drooling. Corrado asks who would notice 
if they just took a few coins before giving it back. Five for 
Poppa, three each for Corrado and Momma and one for the girl 
"Elisabetta". Boy is she ever getting ripped off. He goes to 
pick up a coin and Momma slams the lid on his hand. He flips 
out and hacks at a quilt on the clothesline that he says was 
her "entire dowry" with an ax. Yeah, these people really need 
to work on ways of controlling their anger.

Jean takes Liz (what? I'm lazy) to a stream. She says she 
can't take his belt home and he helps her remove it. That 
doesn't sound quite right... oh, well. Then he feels her 
forehead and says she's developing a fever. She says she 
doesn't think that's what it is. Twitter. Giggle. He suddenly 
remembers that he was supposed to be watching the donkey and 
runs off, trying to tie his belt at the same time. He wanders 
around making donkey noises for a while. Snort. Liz, who is 
washing her wound in the stream, giggles and imitates the 
noise. Then we cut back to Jean, staring at...something on the 
ground. Or maybe he's just staring into space. It's hard to 
tell. Oh, whatever, moving on.

Momma is sewing the quilt back together and crying. It's 
night. She gives up and starts ripping it up again. Oy, I'm 
bored. Morning. I guess. Liz wanders back to the house, 
babbling incoherently at Momma. Something about marrying a 
soldier. Hee. Momma says she's feverish and drags her inside.

Jean is marched into the center of town. Some other soldier 
announces that Jean will be executed if the gold is not 
returned in twenty-four hours. Or so. Then they just leave him 
there, all alone, with nothing preventing him from escaping. 
They say it's because he's a good soldier and he won't try to 
run. I say it's because he's an idiot. A man gives a speech 
that looks like it was intended to be a great Oscar-caliber 
speech or something. Unfortunately, it comes across as forced 
and totally unnecessary so I'll just skip it. The only part 
you need to know is the part where he says "this gold will 
bring only misfortune to the thief" and that the people of 
this town are good and honest. He's confident that whoever 
took the gold will bring it back. Yeah, right.

So it turn's out that the man's son is Corrado. The thief. He 
shoves Corrado's face into a pile of...well...I'm hoping it's 
just dirt and not horse manure. Momma drags Poppa inside. 
Corrado asks the donkey what the hell he's looking at. 'Don't 
you know it's good luck?' So it was manure. Yech. 

Square of Future Dead Guys. Jean is asleep. He practically 
jumps out of his skin at a sudden noise and asks who's there. 
Diandra marches up to him and slaps him, screeching "RUN, YOU 
MORON! SAVE YOURSELF!" Ahem. I mean nobody answers. He 
promises in both French and Italian that he won't look at the 
the person's face, just please, return the gold. We see a POV 
of something suspiciously low to the ground as it creeps up on 
him, audibly dragging something. Jean looks up to see a dog. 
Dragging a basket. Awwww! He's so cute! [Diandra dissolves 
into incoherent "baby talk"] Jean bursts into tears and yells 
at the dog, scaring the poor thing away. 

Meanwhile, Liz is feverish and delirious. Poppa goes outside 
and stands in a well, splashing water on his face. Momma 
follows and he tells her "first I'll sober up. Then I'm going 
to kill [Corrado]." Heh. Go for it. Momma talks him out of it. 
"If the Frenchman deserves to die, let someone else take the 
blame." And who might that be, exactly?

Morning. Jean is taken out to a field. He hands the other 
soldier whose name I frankly don't care about a letter for Liz 
and thanks him for...something. Let's call this guy Brutus. 
Just because. Brutus sees a mule on the hill over Jean's 
shoulder and gets excited. He runs toward it and Jean bursts 
into tears. Again. Three years of Alias and half a dozen 
movies and I've only seen him cry once. Now this is twice in 
the span of, what, five minutes? Not that I have a problem 
with that or anything... Anyway, it's not the right mule. 
Naturally. It belongs to a truly creepy looking kid. Brutus 
takes off his hat to signal the other soldiers and at least a 
half a dozen rifles go off.

Now Brutus is reading Jean's letter to Liz. "Dear [Liz], I 
write to you by the light of the sunset. Perhaps later in the 
dark of night you will hear me shout. Or weep. I hope you 
don't." And I hope there's a point to this somewhere. "I don't 
understand death..." Oh, forget it. Zzzzzzz. "I met you only a 
short time ago, but I loved you from the very start." Oh, 
whatever. "This sometimes happens." Yeah, like in "Romeo and 
Juliet" maybe? Blah blah blah "Today is the seventh day of the 
month of 'Fiorile'. That is the name my Revolution gave to 
this month of spring." He calls her his "Fiorile" and Brutus 
crumples into tears. I wonder just how...friendly he and Jean 
were if you know what I mean. Oh, shut up.

Sometime later the soldiers march away, singing a much more 
depressing song than the one they came in with. Liz flips out, 
grabs a knife and runs out the door and into a field. Why the 
hell is she bothering to run out into the middle of nowhere? 
Just stab yourself and be done with it, honey, you don't have 
to make a big production out of it. Momma and Corrado chase 
after her. Corrado succeeds in taking the knife from her. She 
keeps running. Okay, what the hell is she trying to do? They 
both tackle her and Corrado wails that he can't stand seeing 
her like this and "I'll do anything to make you happy." Liz 
makes him promise that he will hunt down the son of a bitch 
who "let" Jean die. Um...oops.

And we pan to the road where the present day family is still 
driving. Daddy says Liz died in childbirth. "One hundred years 
later, legend has it that one of Elizabetta's descendants 
avenged her." Then we put the whole story on hold so we can 
have a pointless little moment where they stop by the side of 
the road so the little girl in the back seat can pee. Lovely.

I'm just going to summarize this part because I'm pretty much 
bored to death. No, it's not because Michael isn't in this 
story, what makes you think that? [Diandra laughs nervously] 
The Avenger is named Eliza and she's played by the same woman 
who played Liz. She falls in love with a guy in the early 
1900s. Or late 1800s. Whatever. Her brother forcibly separates 
them and makes her think the guy abandoned her. Did I mention 
she's pregnant with the guy's child? Yeah, so she kills her 
brother (and another brother but that wasn't exactly 
intentional) by feeding him poisoned mushrooms.

Back to present day. The family stops to visit the Benedetti 
burial plot. As they drive away, Daddy starts telling the kids 
about "Massimo". A sickly looking kid bikes into the cemetery. 
I guess that was another time shift. Some other kid pops out 
of nowhere and tells Massimo to come look at where his family 
is buried because "something awful has happened." Massimo 
finds a paint can and a trail of red paint leading up to the 
door of the crypt. The name on the plaque has been painted 
over with the word "Maledetti". Some brat kids tease Massimo.

Massimo runs home. The house, by the way is the "hotel" the 
present-tense family was staying at in the beginning of the 
movie. A maid greets Massimo and he babbles incoherently. 
Apparently he turns mute when he's frightened. Or upset. Or 
nervous. She figures out what happened and tells him to ignore 
those little brats because the rumours aren't true. 
Coughliarcough. "Even if they were," she says. "You're 
different." She says he's more like Jean. Yeah, and I'll bet 
he'll grow up to look just like him. Roll eyes here. "When you 
grow up, you'll be just as handsome as he was," she declares. 
What did I just say? Huh?

She leaves and he sits in the middle of the room with a cello. 
He starts crying and asks "Jean" to help him. A disembodied 
voice says "I'm here." And we see Jean, standing at the window 
in full revolution era uniform. He encourages Massimo to play. 
Massimo starts playing and Jean disappears. 

University of Florence: Philosophy Department. 1943-44. Yeah, 
that was a good year. Pft. We are shown a copy of a 
dissertation on the French Army in Tuscany from 1797-1799 
written by Massimo. Then we see Michael (now playing Massimo) 
reading said dissertation. Well, sort of. His mouth is moving 
but somebody else's voice is coming out of it. Nice dubbing 
job guys. Groan. A girl enters the auditorium and asks a 
friend who is already there how he's doing. Friend says good 
but the girl shouldn't have come because he asked her not to. 
She brushes it off and says she wanted to see him. Friend says 
"he's good." The girl, who hasn't taken her eyes off the back 
of his head since she entered the room, says "he's handsome." 
Nice to see some continuity at least. Snort.

Massimo finally finishes and the judge (or whatever...I'm not 
entirely sure how this process works) says it's interesting, 
but it's a little "one-sided" and "too pro-French." I resent 
that. Huh? Sorry...I'm a little touchy about the general anti-
French sentiment lately. "What did the French army give our 
peasants," the judge continues to rant. "Talk and fancy words. 
Or do you know any family who got rich because of them?" Um... 
actually... And apparently we are compensating for the obvious 
dubbing job every time Michael opens his mouth by making 
*everybody's* voice disjointed from their actual lip 
movements. Anyway, Massimo reverts back to his childhood self 
and goes mute. The judge asks if he's okay. He just makes a 
series of ineffectual little noises. His stuttering is 
interrupted by sirens. Everyone is dismissed and heads for the 
bomb shelters.

Massimo sits on the steps of the building, dejected. The girl 
(do I really have to keep calling her that?) tries to coax him 
toward the shelter but he just brushes her off angrily. She 
sits next to him, hands over her head, crying like a ninny. 
Just leave him you twit. If he wants to kill himself, that's 
his problem. "Why are you crying," he snaps. Sheesh. Not 
exactly Mr. Sensitivity in this life, are we? She points out 
that his voice is back. Yeah, but who's voice? She whimpers 
that she'll "die of fright" if he makes her stay out here any 
longer. He's not making you do anything, sweetie. The faint 
noise of airplanes and bombing fills the soundtrack. He asks 
where the shelter is. She grabs his hand and starts running 
but he stops her and kisses her for no apparent reason. Uh, 
hello? Can you do this later? Like, maybe when airplanes 
dropping BOMBS aren't flying overhead? 

They finally head for cover. She gives him a book that she 
says someone told her to give him. He opens it to find a cut-
out compartment and a gun. "They said it's okay," she says. 
What? Who? Whyyeeeeee? He asks if he'll have to "read it" 
soon. Okay, what's with the cloak and dagger code talk? I 
don't see anybody else around them. Mainly because everybody 
else is already in the BOMB SHELTERS WHERE THESE TWO MORONS 
WOULD BE TOO IF THEY DIDN'T HAVE A DEATH WISH. Okay. Next!

They chat while they walk to the same house we've seen twice 
now. He asks if he really has to kill this guy. She says that 
whoever it is turned in a whole family of Jews and Massimo's 
curse of a name might actually prove useful for once. What is 
that supposed to mean? They talk some more to establish that 
the "traitor" is a spy and drives along the same road every 
day at the same time. Alone. Gee, how convenient. And nobody 
has tried to assassinate him before? Massimo is to hitch a 
ride with him, pull the gun on him and take him somewhere 
where the "others" can "do the rest". What is this, the Mafia? 
Oh, wait...I guess that's entirely possible. She says they'll 
put him on trial. Oh, such a naïve girl. She says Massimo has 
to do this because "he trusts you." Who? The target? The don? 
The Godfather? She stops suddenly. "Are you listening?" 
Massimo stares at her stupidly. Hee. Snort. No, he was 
probably too busy mentally undressing you, hon. She asks what 
he's thinking. "I was thinking that I'd like to make love to 
you and sleep next to you all night," he just randomly blurts 
out. Sure. And they just had to give Michael a line like that 
and then NOT LET HIM SAY IT IN HIS ACTUAL VOICE. Gah.

That night. We see the girl lying naked in bed...alone. Cello 
music plays. She wakes and sits up, giving us a full on breast 
shot just so we know that this movie was, in fact, made in 
Europe. She puts on some sort of slip and wanders into the 
next room to find Massimo playing the same old cello (and 
unfortunately, he's fully clothed). She stands behind him and 
fingers her lips in a way that is obviously meant to be 
erotic. This would make more sense if she were in front of him 
and he were actually looking at her, but whatever. The song, 
by the way, is the same one that's been playing on the 
soundtrack since the beginning of this movie. The girl wanders 
around the room and finds a mannequin dressed as an 18th 
century French soldier. More specifically, Jean. Massimo says 
"I told you about him...he's the good side of my family." 
What, the French side? Heh. "He'd visit me often when I was a 
child...he doesn't come anymore." Probably because the special 
effects budget (if there even is one) doesn't allow for you to 
be in two places at once, Mike. Massimo thinks now that he has 
her he doesn't need Jean anymore. She sits next to him and 
kisses his non-tattooed shoulder.

Deserted road in the middle of nowhere. Next day. Massimo 
takes the gun from the book, sticks it in his pocket and waits 
for the "target" to show. My god, his hair is *blond*. A local 
wanders by and tells him that the buses don't stop here no 
more. He says his bicycle is broken. She shoves a bag of 
something heavy in his arms and says "give me a hand!" He 
hesitates, looking from her to the road. Then he helps her 
carry it roughly five feet, hands it back to her and she 
continues on her merry way. Now what was the point of that?

A car drives down the road. Presumably containing the 
"target". Massimo raises his hand to flag it down and then 
sees a flatbed truck following close behind it and apparently 
decides to abort the mission. He pretends to be fixing his 
bicycle and looks up as they pass...seeing the girl on the 
flatbed, hands tied to the overhead beams. Oops. He chases 
after the truck until two guys jump out and tackle him. He 
clumsily tries to remove the gun from his pocket and they 
relieve him of it. So, basically, he's about as competent a 
spy as Vaughn. 

Some unidentified time later. A half-dozen prisoners are 
lounging in a field, on break. Massimo is writing in some sort 
of diary. "Chiara, my love, my Fiorile." Oh, lord, here we go. 
Another "Romeo and Juliet" love letter schmoop fest. Kill me. 
"I've had no news of you for many days. I don't even know if 
you're still alive." Zzzzzz. "I'm alive, but maybe not for 
long." Oh, good, maybe somebody can put you out of your 
misery. "If they decide to shoot me, I'll die for the same 
ideals that brought Jean here." What? How do you figure? Blah 
blah I love you blah blah you're a goddess blah blah. Oh, 
look, here come the men with machine guns. Thank god.

A soldier asks the leader what they should do with the 
prisoners. The leader says shoot 'em. Another soldier says 
they have a letter that says they should spare one of them. 
Some guy named Benedetti. Why? Why why why whyeeeeee? The 
leader says tough shit because none of them would tell the 
soldiers their name. One guy says he knows how to recognize 
him and has all the prisoners stand up and show him their 
hands. He passes by three pairs of dirty, callused hands and 
stops in front of Massimo, whose hands are barely even dirty. 
What the hell has he been doing all this time? I can't believe 
they haven't shot him already for sitting around writing love 
letters when he was supposed to be working. One of the 
soldiers shouts "fifth on the right, step out!" They all look 
at each other, trying to figure out whose right he means. For 
some reason, my brain makes a note of the fact that they are 
all evenly spaced out only when Massimo steps out of the line. 
There's something weird about this. 

Massimo walks very...slowly...toward the soldiers. They barely 
let him step clear of the guns before opening fire. He flips 
out and some guy has to hold him back to keep him from doing 
anything stupid. He starts crying again. I definitely think 
he's going for a record here. A time stamp flashes on the 
screen that says 1:34. Thanks Gin! Does that mean I'm almost 
done? The guy who saved him introduces himself as he cuts 
Massimo free. "Don't forget me when the war's over," he says. 
Massimo just sneers at him and staggers to a nearby farm as 
the soldiers drive away. A girl runs from the house to the 
executed prisoners and sobs over one of the bodies. An old man 
calls Massimo by name and Massimo collapses in front of him - 
yeah, you guessed it - crying. The old man looks at the crying 
girl and tears up. Then he starts yelling and beating on 
Massimo with a cane. Oooookaaaaaay. 

1:36. Thanks, Gin. Back to the present. Daddy says Massimo 
wandered the countryside for days and didn't reappear until 
the war was over. "But he was a changed man." Oh, really? He 
checked himself into a mental clinic "believing he was mad." 
Meanwhile, his girlfriend (the present-day children's 
grandmother) "went from prison to prison," says Mommy. She 
died in a bombing shortly after giving birth to Daddy. But 
Massimo, aka Grandpa, was "haunted by the curse on the gold" 
and sent Daddy far away from him to live. Interesting 
justification. I'm thinking he just didn't want to have to 
deal with a needy kid. So Daddy grew up in France and Grandpa 
now lives in "Fiorile's house." Daddy says people are 
convinced Grandpa has hidden the last of the coins, but he 
obviously doesn't believe it himself. "Look at your 
grandfather," he says as they pull into the driveway. "Isn't 
he beautiful?" What a weird ass thing to say. I mean, it's 
nice continuity and all, but if my father had ever said 
something like that about his dad, I would have wondered what 
the heck he was smoking.

Massimo greets them by saying "you shouldn't have brought them 
[the kids] here." Well, hello to you too. Then he takes one 
look at the kids and mutters "Corrado" and "Elizabetta". Yes, 
let's talk reincarnation, shall we? They introduce themselves 
as "Emilio" and "Simona". Massimo says, again, that they 
shouldn't have come. Mommy protests that he's "ill" and he 
"needs" them. He says "your accent is so sweet." Okay, it was 
charming when you were younger and looked like Michael Vartan, 
but now shit like this just makes you sound like a dirty old 
man, pal. Then he demands a kiss from Daddy. It's a cute 
little moment. Daddy asks how his heart is doing. Massimo says 
he feels like there are ants crawling up and down his arms 
every time he opens his hand, but they haven't bothered him in 
a few days.

Later, Mommy is setting the table for dinner. She asks Daddy 
if the forks are made of gold. He says nah, probably not. The 
kids snoop around a bit. Simona goes into the attic, yelps and 
runs back out, saying "Jean's in there!" Emilio goes back in 
with her and says it's not Jean, it's just the mannequin 
Massimo made of him.

Dinner. Massimo says he made the meal himself. "I picked them 
in the woods." But he says he can't eat them himself because 
the doctor said they were a big no-no. Yep, it's mushrooms. 
The kids stare at the plate like it's a giant, hissing snake. 
Massimo asks 'well, what're you waiting for? Eat up!' To their 
credit, they do not run from the room screaming. They just say 
they're not hungry. Daddy and Mommy take this as their cue to 
dig in. The kids try to underhandedly keep the parents from 
eating. 1:43. Yes, thank you Gin. Emilio yells at Mommy to 
stop when she tries to eat. Massimo laughs. "I see you know 
about it [Eliza]," he says. He eats one to prove it's not 
poisonous. Daddy apologizes for scaring the crap out of them 
with stories of his family's tragic history. Massimo says 
'then you must have told them the gold won.' Mommy mentions 
Jean. Massimo says Jean "ended up in the attic." Daddy starts 
telling Massimo that he shouldn't live alone anymore, he can 
come to Paris with them and blah blah blah. Massimo is 
distracted by the gold-colored fork Daddy is tapping on the 
table as he talks. He gets up and walks out of the room, 
saying "I want you to leave tomorrow morning. I never want to 
see these children in this house again." Gee, what a sweet guy 
he's turned into.

That night, the kids wait until their parents go for a walk or 
something and go into the attic to search for the remaining 
gold coins, which they think are inside the mannequin. Simona 
pulls off the mannequin's head and declares it's empty. Snort. 
Twitter. That might explain a few things about Jean's 
behavior, actually. They try to rip open the torso and the 
whole thing topples over. They try to escape but stop when 
they hear Massimo coming up the stairs. Massimo enters and 
sees some movement coming from his "mannequin" (which is 
actually Simona on Emilio's shoulders, wearing Jean's hat and 
wrapped in the cape. It's dark, so Massimo won't know the 
difference. Massimo mutters that he must be crazy. Simona 
whispers to Emilio to stay still and Emilio whispers something 
about Massimo killing them if he saw them. That seems a bit 
melodramatic, but okay. 

Massimo hears the whispering and thinks that Jean has come 
back to him. "I know what you want to say." Something along 
the lines of "shut up and let me rest in peace" maybe?  
"You're silent because you're kind. But you'd like to scold me 
for what I said at the table tonight." Well, you *have* been a 
total jackass so far. He basically apologizes for ever 
doubting that Jean would come back to him. Then he whines 
about his nonexistent love life and cries. The kids start 
crying too. Sheesh, what is with all the crying in this movie? 
He says he feels sorry for Jean, coming all this way to "sow 
the seeds of a great plant" in a "miserable pot." Yeah, well, 
that's life. Shit happens. Then he goes all metaphorical and 
talks about roots tangling and shattering the vase and I start 
losing track of what the hell he was talking about in the 
first place. Simona says she's had enough and falls off her 
brother's shoulders. Massimo doesn't look happy, but he 
doesn't necessarily look angry either. Not that it matters 
because the kids still run off screaming. Massimo just sits 
there looking numb. And maybe like his heart is starting to 
bother him again. He doesn't look so good. Maybe somebody 
should call an ambulance or something...

The next day. I guess. The family is leaving. Mommy's talking 
about not selling the house if it's too painful for Daddy. 
They can just leave it empty. So, what? Did Massimo die? Huh? 
Where am I? Daddy says he never wants to go back there. The 
kids can sell it if they want when they grow up. Mommy 
comments on how quiet said kids are. We see them sleeping in 
the back seat. Or *are* they? Emilio opens his eyes and looks 
down at the gold coin he has clutched in his hand. Simona 
writes "Fiorile" in the condensation on the window. And so the 
cycle of life continues. I guess. I don't know. My head hurts.

~Diandra Hollman