"Mira Sorvino shines in [this] sweet little movie..."
-- Harper Barnes, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Solid at heart...this tale of thwarted love and torn ethnic roots
will make pleasing fare..."
-- Ken Eisner, Variety
"A sensibility that glows."
-- Kevin Thomas, The Los Angeles Times
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By Uncovering Her Mother's Secret,
a Daughter Finds Herself.
Oscar-winner Mira Sorvino stars in this richly textured story of an
Italian-American woman who returns to her childhood home only to discover her
mother's complex secret. A moving drama about the inescapable bonds of family
and tradition, TARANTELLA also features Rose Gregorio and Matthew Lillard
(Scream).
In a fine, understated performance, Mira Sorvino's Diana is a young and
ambitious photographer whose rejection of her family's Italian traditions led
her to seek a more contemporary American life -- far from the old neighborhood
and free of the "old country." When her mother dies suddenly, Diana is
forced to return to prepare her family's home for sale. Alone in the house for
the first time ever, surrounded by her mother and grandmother's cherished old
world possessions, Diana recalls a childhood fraught with secrets never
explained. Through elegantly staged flashbacks, we see a rebellious girl trying
to escape the heavy weight of tradition as embodied by her mother and
grandmother.
Pina (Rose Gregorio), her mother's friend and neighbor, arrives bearing a canary
that belonged to Diana's mother and a beautiful old book -- her mother's
"libro della casa," a "house diary" filled with handwritten
recipes, daily entries, mementos, and a mysterious story -- all in Italian. Diana
is overwhelmed. Intent on forgetting the past, she sees the book and Pina's
overtures as pulling her back to a place she has never accepted.
But Pina is persistent, slowly working her way into Diana's affections. She
begins to translate the libro della casa for her new, young friend, and Diana
slowly succumbs to the powerful beauty in many of the old traditions, and the
ways in which they bind women to each other. The journal's story unfolds,
beautifully enacted by puppets in the traditional Italian style. It is a dark,
operatic tale of a young woman in a small village who poisons her abusive
husband and manages to escape with her small daughter to America. The woman in
the story is Diana's grandmother.
As Diana and Pina grow closer, Diana is able to finally make peace with her
family, finding comfort in the old traditions and this surprising friendship.
She is now able to offer a similar comfort to Pina, helping her new friend to
realize a final wish.
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