Synopsis
Love and injury in time of war. Attilio de Giovanni teaches poetry in Italy. He has a romantic soul, and women love him. But he is in love with Vittoria, and the love is unrequited. Every night he dreams of marrying her, in his boxer shorts and t-shirt, as Tom Waits sings. Vittoria travels to Iraq with her friend, Fuad, a poet; they are there with the second Gulf War breaks out. Vittoria is injured. Attilio must get to her side, and then, as war rages around him, he must find her the medical care she needs. In war, does love conquer all?
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Cast
- Roberto BenigniAttilio de Giovanni
- Jean RenoFuad
- Nicoletta BraschiVittoria
- Emilia FoxNancy Browning
- Giuseppe BattistonErmanno
- Tom WaitsHimself / Sè stesso
- Andrea RenziDottor Guazzelli
- Lucia PoliSignora Serao
- Gianfranco VarettoAvvocato Scuotilancia
- Anna PirriRosa
Recommendations
- 60
Variety
Like an Iraq-war mirror image of "Life Is Beautiful," actor-director Roberto Benigni's The Tiger and the Snow re-runs the successful structure and comic persona of the 1998 Oscar-winning film in a trippy fantasia about a poet who follows his love to hell and, in this happier ending, back. - 50
New York Daily News
Benigni clearly intends to make some impassioned statements about the futility of war, the power of romance, the enduring strength of optimism. However, the once-appealing innocence of his exuberant persona has become curdled over time. - 50
Salon
A winsome, charming and irresistibly romantic picture, and also a profoundly self-involved one that has nothing whatever to do with Iraq or war or much of anything else besides the butterfly-like spirit of Roberto Benigni. But I guess that combination makes it a great holiday selection choice for certain disheveled, liberal family groups. Mine, for instance. - 40
The Hollywood Reporter
Perhaps a greater passage of time was needed to provide a more effective historical perspective, but "Tiger" has a bigger problem with a dramatic structure that sags conspicuously in the middle, never to completely correct itself. - 38
TV Guide Magazine
Benigni's artfully composed images are as empty as his political convictions. - 20
Village Voice
The results are neither profound nor funny, but merely uncomfortable. A hubristic failure at risky humor, The Tiger and the Snow provides Benigni his own Michael Richards moment. - 0
New York Post
The longer the movie goes on, the more annoying Benigni's infantile behavior becomes. - 0
San Francisco Chronicle
Remember that manic, rambling Oscar acceptance speech, when Benigni leapt around the auditorium? That might have been charming for two or three minutes, but imagine two hours of it.
