L’Immensità is director Emanuele Crialese’s fifth feature, thoughtfully crafted and based heavily on his own life experience. It premiered in competition at the 2022 Venice Film Festival as an ode to adolescence, set against a euphoric Italian pop music backdrop. 

In the early 1970s, Rome is a city in transition. As an emerging middle class supplants an antiquated family dynamic, Clara and her husband, Felice, move into a new apartment with three children. Stuck in a languid marriage to an unfaithful and abusive husband, Clara focuses her attention on the kids, connecting with them by channeling her own inner child. She relates to 13-year-old Adriana the most, and the two run through the streets yelling at the top of their lungs to escape the adversities of life. Adriana has begun to identify as a boy, Andrew, and proclaims to his mother that he comes from another galaxy — something that Clara definitely relates to.  

While Penélope Cruz absolutely shines in the role of Clara, it is newcomer Luana Giuliani who demands the screen in this exuberant relationship story between mother and child.

Available in person and online.