Caterina in the Big City

Nobody ever said high school was easy, and for young teen Caterina it's also a political minefield. Paolo Virzi's entertaining coming-of-age film finds Caterina removed from her seaside village and thrust into a Rome school divided into cliques between the kids of upper-crust conservatives and the grungy offspring of the politically left-of-center—who refer to each other as “fascist” and “communist.” With no previous experience in politics or class warfare, Caterina finds herself in the middle of this social battlefield. Likewise, Caterina's father (Sergio Castellitto) left his country school teaching job for a position in the Roman school system and the chance of making his mark as a novelist. But while Caterina (Alice Teghil) is a sweet child who successfully navigates through the rocky new environment, her father is a socially-inept and melodramatic hothead who becomes his own worst enemy. While the comedy is somewhat broad, Caterina in the Big City will nonetheless bring pangs of recognition to anyone ever forced to quickly adjust to radically different socioeconomic surroundings, and while the political dimensions of the class-conscious divide are strictly Italian, the genuine angst and stress felt by Caterina and her father are absolutely universal. Recommended. (P. Hall)