HONEY (Valeria Golino 2013)

Valeria Golino: HONEY/MIELE (2013)

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640...0/196/5gxh.jpg
JASMINE TRINCA AND CARLO CECCHI IN HONEY/MEIELE

Is this an issue-film, or isn't it?

Honey is a new Italian film by a first-time female director about a young woman (played by the severely handsome Jasmine Trinca), work name Miele (Honey), who helps people with hopeless illnesses to die. Things get complicated for her when a older man she has set up to do away with himself using her drug and instructions but without her being present (not her usual policy) turns out to be perfectly heathy, just "bored with life." It's not in her program to assist mere suicides -- of physically sound people. Why should we not be surprised that this film is depressing? It got good reviews (Metacritic 74) but, while no doubt original for a film from Italy in its depiction of a cool modern young woman living a non-traditional life (on her own, sex but no real boyfriend) strikes some unconvincing, pseudo-important notes. It also cuts a few too many corners in its jagged, cryptic modern mode of storytelling. It leaves its protagonist too fragmentary. What's gong on with this young woman? How did she get into this work? Who is she? Scenes of the assisted deaths show how complex and troubling this "shit job," as one client's family member convincingly calls it it, is for Miele. But the wider context is missing. How illegal and dangerous is this? And the central plot point seems manipulative, and relies too much on montages and tableaux. It's well-made on some level and certainly approaches a challenging subject, but it feels off.

Golino's editing biffs Irene ("Miele's" her real name) around from place to place, jumping from sex scene with giggles to solemn assisted suicide, transporting her to Mexico, where she gets veterinary barbiturates illegal in Europe, as if it were easier than taking the night train from Tuscany to Naples. When she runs into Carlo (Carlo Cecchi), the cheat who's not sick -- a former architect she calls "Ingegnere," Engineer, he's a cool customer, a bit too confident and showy in manner, frankly, to be interesting or for that matter to seem suicidal. Obviously, when she keeps coming back yelling at him and demanding her veterinary barbiturates back and they start to become oddball "friends," we hope, and sort of know, this isn't going to become a touching May-December romance that will restore Carlo's will to live. But it's artificial. A weakness in the characterization: he's a chain-smoker with a heavy cough. One suspects the actor may have chronic pulmonary disease, so maybe he wasn't the best casting possible and one also thinks: maybe he is fatally ill and was just messing with her?

Sometimes it feels like Golino is more interested in depicting her beautiful, sporty, mannish young protagonist in various poses than in creating an emotionally convincing character. Irene seems solemn and serious when she explains things to her "clients" and their (often emotionally devastated) next of kin. But in her affair with a married man, Stefano (Vinicio Marchioni) -- "Are you jealous?" he asks; "Sometimes" -- she seems neither committed nor serious, a grown-up girl. You wonder how she got into something so risky and challenging. It's "not the money" -- but she's handed envelopes packed with 100-euro notes, and Carlo points out what she purveys is only available to the few.

Some writers about Honey, which is based on a book by Mauro Covacich, say it avoids being an "issue movie," but if it's not an issue movie, what is it? Irene's brief "friendship" with Carlo -- concluded with the most unsurprising of surprises -- is designed to make her confront her decision to engage in this work. True, the "issue" is not much discussed. It is made clear there may be an important difference in helping people to die who are physically suffering and whose lives are hopeless. Irene thinks so. A young very ill man who can barely speak (Jacopo Crovella) is a heartrending suggested image of someone deeply pathetic, utterly different from a person who is simply psychologically unable to cope. That's a state that might alter, though it also might not. None of this becomes clear. It seems the film's final outlook may be colored by the Catholic condemnation of suicide, which morphs into a sense that helping people die is just too heavy a task, too much like being an executioner. If all this isn't "issue movie" stuff, what is it?

But it's "issue movie" material covered over with slick contempo style, embodied in a trendy macho modern Italian woman (who's also an ambiguous figure, since she isn't sure of anything). The "issue" may be muddled. Perhaps it should be. But it's still an issue, and it's still the main thing going on in this movie -- not the tableaux, the quick sex and giggles in a van, or the pointless pop songs.

This is a good and original lead role for Jasmine Trinca, who had good parts a decade ago in The Son's Room and The Best of Youth and six years ago in Il Caimano. The director, Valeria Golino, is a former model who was successful as an actress, playing in Hollywood films, including Tom Cruise's wife in Rain Man, and was a former girlfriend of Benicio del Toro. This film was produced by Riccardo Scarmarccio, one of Italy's biggest current movies stars, who's currently Golino's partner.

Honey/Miele, 96 mins., debuted at Cannes Un Certain Regard 2013, and opened in France in late September (prime time there) to very good reviews (Allociné press rating 3.8), which found it masterful for a "débutante" and stylish. Opened in the US 7 March 2014 at Cinema Village.