David's Birthday

This fantastic romance drama in Italian puts me in "watch only" mode.  Because the actors in this movie generally speak Italian, I have to actually watch the movie the whole time.  I am kind of like my mother, I do more then one thing at a time: multi-tasking.  Of course, like most dramas, this starts off slow.

Two couples go on vacation by the beach in Italy in the summer and one brings their daughter along and the other's son is to be coming soon.  The daughter is young, about 8 or 9, and is adored by her father, Matteo, and mother, Francesca.

I must say, in the beginning, when all four of them were at the Opera, I found it hard to follow.  This usually happens with foreign movies for me though.  They were all chit-chatting during the show and then Shery spotted her brother in another Opera box.  During intermission she goes over there and chats and invites him to the summer house.

When at the summer house, they all get comfortable and hang out together on the beach.  The women do what women do: chat about famous men they want to have an affair with.

Soon the other couple's son, David comes.  David is in college and is the typical hot guy: tall, dark, and handsome.  He goes to school in New York and unfortunately, his father, Diego, barely knows him.  Diego and his wife, Shery, had gotten together and separated a few times since they were married.  This couple acts like the typical husband and wife we see today though: argues a lot, one understands the son and one doesn't, two different ideas of what their son should and shouldn't do, etc.  He is friendly and plays with Matteo's daughter. When her daughter leaves to go to the mountains where she can be with children her own age, Matteo starts to observe David more.

Matteo and David's relationship had never been big before David's birthday.  In my idea, Matteo was too scared to confront David with his feelings toward him.  David had posed as a model for underwear and it suited him very well.  Their first "togetherness" started when David asked Matteo if he wanted to go for a ride on a motorcycle he found in the garage.  When Matteo had his arms outstretched while on the back of the bike, David took his arm and placed it on his own stomach.  Then Matteo tightened his leg grip on David's legs.  From there, Matteo started to get jealous because of the girl that was hanging around David, Aurora.  But he soon overcame that jealousy when he saw David swimming, he went straight up to him and gave him his beer.  The way he gave it to him and the way David drank it, it was sensual and semi-romantic.

The sex scene was just as sexy and sensual as it would be if it were a man and woman.  Just because they are men doesn't mean they feel any different and I support that.

What I thought was interesting was the very end when Matteo's wife catches Matteo and David having sexual intercourse.  She didn't know what was coming, she was locked out of the house from the downstairs and had picked something up for David's birthday and heard noises from a room and found the most surprising sight in her life.  She ran off and Matteo ran to catch her while being completely nude.  Before he could reach the bottom of the stairs he hears a screech of wheels and a HIT!  His wife was hit by a car; killing her.

Towards the beginning, Matteo would go back to work where he was a therapist.  He had asked his patient, "Do you lie?".  She said she didn't lie she "omits", which means you leave something out.  So at the end at dinner, after Matteo's wife died, Shery asked him where he was when she was hit.  He just starts sobbing and that is the end of the movie.  I thought that was great.  Very significant.  In a way, this was foreshadowing.