Genre: Romantic Comedy

Language: Italian with English Subtitles

Director: Anna Negri

Cast: Alba Caterina Rohrwacher, Marco Foschi, Valentina Lodovini, Alessandro Averone, Leonardo Bono, Damiano Bono

Released: 2008

Duration: 100 Minutes

Rating: M contains sex scenes & offensive language

Distribution: Palace Films

A fresh voice in Italian cinema emerges with Anna Negri’s amusing and bittersweet drama that premiered at Sundance in 2008, featuring hot new acting talents Alba Rohrwacher and Marco Foschi.

The action centres on a documentary team who set out to capture the effect that being a ‘temp actor’ has on personal lives. Their focus is on a young couple, actor Giovanni (Foschi) and freelance film-editor Lucia (a radiant Rohrwacher) who live together in central Rome with their one-year-old son. What these documentary makers don’t expect is to stumble headlong into a crisis situation, as Giovanni, with cameras rolling, announces over a romantic anniversary dinner that he’s leaving Lucia and walks out.

The camera continues relentlessly filming the couple despite this unexpected real life crisis. Lucia’s solitude and heartache are mercilessly dissected by the lens of cameraman Eros, while at the same time, Lucia’s husband is having a passionate affair with a female doctor whom he is convinced is the new love of his life. As the documentary makers continue to follow the separated couple around, they find themselves increasingly drawn into the messy and raw emotional drama rather than exploring the issues of job insecurity and disillusionment so pervasive in the movie industry, especially among young people.

Despite the heartbreaking storyline, ‘Good Morning, Heartache’, infused with lightness and moments of humour is both a touching tale about how a couple’s break-up affects the lives of those around them and provides an original take on cinema and its representation of fact and fiction, of illusion and reality.