Italian For Beginners

It sure takes its sweet time getting around to the "plot," as it were (there's not much of a plot to begin with, but that's another story). Ultimately, it starts to make sense, and you get some real cinematic charm from characters you like. But the shockingly low production values--hand-held digital video camerawork, with little to no artistry or (dare I say it) mise-en-scene--make you feel like you're watching a low-rate foreign porn flick, except nobody's getting naked. A tough call, really--if you're not big on foreign films, you can probably skip it.