Victor Alfieri is a playboy and Ione Skye is a widowed realtor who find love in “My Father’s Will.’’
MOVIE REVIEW
My Father's Will
‘My Father’s Will’ masquerades as economic morality tale
Victor Alfieri is a playboy and Ione Skye is a widowed realtor who find love in “My Father’s Will.’’
You don’t have to make the pilgrimage all the way to Sundance to be disillusioned by indie romantic comedies taking a paint-by-numbers approach to the genre. Despite noble intentions, writer-director Fred Manocherian’s debut film is a clumsy imitation of all the familiar Hollywood rom-com gloss: improbably kooky impediments to love and fulfillment, tidy solutions to said impediments, and a pervading atmosphere of fabulousness to cushion any uncomfortably hard life lessons.
Here those lessons are learned by shave-averse Italian hunk Victor Alfieri, a soaps vet and bit player in “Angels & Demons.’’ Alfieri is billionaire financier Ferro Olivetti, a playboy who doesn’t seem to party particularly hard, but who nevertheless gets a deathbed request from his dear old Italian papa to chuck his glamorous lifestyle and try getting by as a regular Giuseppe for a month. Ferro dutifully leaves his California digs and, as “Claude,’’ hops on a plane for New York with only the designer leather jacket on his back. After the requisite run-ins with “Beat It’’ street toughs and a night in jail, Ferro conveniently stumbles into a job as a chauffeur for a boorish realty magnate (Gerry Bamman, the cranky uncle from “Home Alone’’), and into the heart of put-upon, widowed realtor Diane (Ione Skye).
Despite sharing a name with her “Say Anything’’ character, Skye’s lonelyheart couldn’t be further from that career-high-point exercise in romantic idiosyncrasy. When Diane remarks to Ferro over ice-breaking espressos, “I don’t know why I feel comfortable talking to you about myself,’’ you think, no kidding, sister. With his Dylan McDermott brow and permanent expression of concern, Alfieri has seemingly been cast to project instant, manly empathy; with his stiffness, his accent, and his flowing Harlequin-model mane, he’s more just a cipher.
And the acting isn’t bolstered much by the handful of other familiar names Manocherian has recruited. Talia Shire dons housecoats and latex gloves in a half-caricature as Diane’s fretful outer-borough mama, while Ron Silver, in his final (truncated?) role, sits literally silent at cutaway courtroom proceedings imperiling Ferro’s fortune.
The movie also seriously muddles its message about love and kindness, not money, making the world go round. (Underscoring the point, the filmmakers have stated that box office proceeds are being donated to the American Red Cross to aid Haiti.) Days after saying goodbye to his mansion, his business, and la dolce vita, Ferro has found new happiness - crashing in someone else’s mansion, launching a realty start-up with Diane, and taking it for granted that he has, say, a Town Car and cellphone at his disposal. So much for chucking it all.
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