Although structured and shot in a predictable mock-Fellini style (dreamlike, plotless), to say that this is a cinematic love letter to the work of the titular Italian director would be an insult to the old maestro. The trouble with filmmaker Taron Lexton’s In Search of Fellini is that its soppy sentimentality and persistent humorlessness overrides any sense of Fellini-esque playful wonderment. The story centers on 20-year-old, impossibly awkward Ohio native Lucy (Ksenia Solo), who fawns over Fellini and obsessively watches his films in her bedroom. When her doting mother (Maria Bello) is diagnosed with cancer she begs Lucy to finally get out of the house and see the world. Lucy decides she wants to meet Fellini, and since this is clearly a film in which cartoonish fantasia rules, Lucy is able to make an appointment to meet the director at his office in Rome. But since Lucy is such an inept doofus, she misses her plane and ends up in Verona. During her surreal misadventures in that city (and later in Venice) she’s ushered into a Fellini-esque underworld of shady revelers who happen to resemble characters in Fellini films. Unfortunately, Lucy’s doe-eyed vulnerability and social ineptness are only briefly endearing, after which she becomes a serious patience tester. Optional. (M. Sandlin)
In Search of Fellini
Samuel Goldwyn, 103 min., R, DVD: $14.99 Volume 33, Issue 4
In Search of Fellini
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