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RELEASES Italy

Principe abusivo, an illicit prince for Valentine’s day

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- Alessandro Siani’s film is a love story in which he stars with Christian De Sica and Sarah Felberbaum, showing up in movie theatres on February 14

The fairy tale elements are all there for Alessandro Siani’s directing debut. There’s a princess, a castle, and there’s even a toad. Shot at the Rubein castle in Merano, in Alto Adige, Il principe abusivo [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, will be hitting Italian movie theatres on Saint-Valentine’s day – a love story revolving around a beautiful princess and an unemployed toad.

Never coming close to vulgarity, the comedy’s star (returning after the extraordinary success of Benvenuti al Sud [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
and Benvenuti al Nord [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, when he played next to Claudio Bisio) parades his Neapolitan nature, in a film reminiscent of certain English-language comedies, from My Fair Lady to Little Lord Fauntleroy, with further explicit references to Cyrano de Bergerac.

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Princess Letizia (Sarah Felberbaum) needs visibility to promote her good works. Following the advice of her chamberlain Anastasio (Christian De Sica), she decides the only way to end up on the front page of newspapers is to pretend to fall in love with someone miserable and create a scandal. The victim is quickly found. His name is Antonio (Alessandro Siani). He is a ne’er do well, living hand to mouth, a leech. The most exhilarating scenes are those in which we see Antonio in action. He seeks out inauguration parties in order to jump on buffets, he drinks free coffees in bars, pretending to be a coffee machine technician, his deodorant are free perfume hand-outs. Between the one noble and the other leech (together in the photo), fiction will inevitably give way to true feelings.

Siani is a cheeky comedian, who knows how to hold his audience’s attention and is able to give his character nuances even if in a folkloric, often excessive way. The actor is also capable of a less brash performance, as he proves in the second part of the film, in which Antonio cleans himself up to conquer Letizia’s heart. There is less dialogue and there are less theatrical moves. It would be quite nice to see more of this side of him in the future.

Il principe abusivo was produced by Cattleya with RaiCinema and will be in movie theatres on February 14 with 01 in 548 theatres.

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(Translated from Italian)

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