Josh O’Connor stars a grief-stricken graverobber in Alice Rohrwacher’s gorgeous new film. Here’s our La Chimera review.
Italian director Alice Rohrwacher is a master of combining almost supernatural elements with the mundane. Her 2018 feature Happy As Lazzarro was an ambitious, spellbinding exploration of friendships and modern life. Rohrwacher’s latest film, La Chimera, once again combines magical realism and the humdrum with thrilling, if sometimes inaccessible results.
The film opens with a woman, as dreamt by Josh O’Connor’s grumbly archaeologist-turned-grave robber Arthur. Arthur is a man of few words, mourning the loss of his beloved Beniamina (Yile Vianello). We’re not privy to what exactly happened to Beniamina, but we’re acutely aware of Arthur’s bereavement.
Arthur has a bizarre talent of being able to locate buried treasure. He and his friends then sell the artefacts and reap short-lived benefits. One day, Arthur meets Italia...
Italian director Alice Rohrwacher is a master of combining almost supernatural elements with the mundane. Her 2018 feature Happy As Lazzarro was an ambitious, spellbinding exploration of friendships and modern life. Rohrwacher’s latest film, La Chimera, once again combines magical realism and the humdrum with thrilling, if sometimes inaccessible results.
The film opens with a woman, as dreamt by Josh O’Connor’s grumbly archaeologist-turned-grave robber Arthur. Arthur is a man of few words, mourning the loss of his beloved Beniamina (Yile Vianello). We’re not privy to what exactly happened to Beniamina, but we’re acutely aware of Arthur’s bereavement.
Arthur has a bizarre talent of being able to locate buried treasure. He and his friends then sell the artefacts and reap short-lived benefits. One day, Arthur meets Italia...
- 5/10/2024
- by Maria Lattila
- Film Stories
Soil gently brushed off an ancient piece of pottery, paint peeling from a villa wall, a hand stroking the white, marble face of a statue unseen for thousands of years: La Chimera is a tactile film that shows history as something that can be felt emotionally, as well as touched. Writer and director Alice Rohrwacher melds mischief, myth and melancholy in this playful and quietly bewitching contemporary folk tale that is light on plot but infused with wonder.
We meet raffish but haunted archaeologist Arthur (an exquisite Josh O’Connor) fitfully asleep on a train trundling through the wintry Italian countryside. Looking like a grubby ghost in his dirty white-linen suit, he’s fresh out of the slammer and mourning the death of his beloved Beniamina (Yile Vianello). Once he arrives in a hilltop town, he quickly reunites with a haphazard, merry band of grave-robbing rogues who need his strange power...
We meet raffish but haunted archaeologist Arthur (an exquisite Josh O’Connor) fitfully asleep on a train trundling through the wintry Italian countryside. Looking like a grubby ghost in his dirty white-linen suit, he’s fresh out of the slammer and mourning the death of his beloved Beniamina (Yile Vianello). Once he arrives in a hilltop town, he quickly reunites with a haphazard, merry band of grave-robbing rogues who need his strange power...
- 5/10/2024
- by Laura Venning
- Empire - Movies
It’s quite a struggle to figure out what’s going on in La Chimera. That’s not a criticism, by the way. In fact, I thought it mirrored exactly how Arthur, the de facto lead of the film, and his colleagues keep digging hard to find treasure, which is quite amazing. Not much happens in Alice Rohrwacher’s latest film, at least story-wise. It’s mostly Arthur wandering around with his dowsing stick, trying to locate buried treasure, and people around him having conversations mainly about how their lives would change if they managed to get instantly wealthy. But underneath the surface of that, La Chimera is a mood piece that is filled with a lot of melancholy and maybe a hint of magic. If you’re familiar with Rohrwacher’s style of filmmaking, which often has an aloofness, lacks a certain kind of structure, and doesn’t quite follow a particular narrative style,...
- 5/7/2024
- by Rohitavra Majumdar
- Film Fugitives
Gian Piero Capretto, Ramona Fiorini, Melochiorre Pala, Josh O’Connor, Luca Gargiullo, Vincenzo Nemolato, and Lou Roy LecollinetPhoto: Neon
The past is so close you can almost touch it in Alice Rohrwacher’s romantic treasure hunt, La Chimera. Set in the liminal space between living and dying, better known as the Italian countryside,...
The past is so close you can almost touch it in Alice Rohrwacher’s romantic treasure hunt, La Chimera. Set in the liminal space between living and dying, better known as the Italian countryside,...
- 3/27/2024
- by Matt Schimkowitz
- avclub.com
Italia Ricci is starring as Avery in the new Hallmark Channel movie Catch Me If You Claus and you might be curious to know more about her personal life.
The 37-year-old actress is best known for her work in the ABC/Netflix series Designated Survivor, the Netflix show The Imperfects, and the ABC Family series Chasing Life. She has also appeared in several movies for Hallmark Channel.
Italia is married in real life and her husband is also a famous actor!
Keep reading to find out more…
Back in 2008, Italia began dating actor Robbie Amell and they have been together for over 15 years now. The couple got married in 2016 and welcomed their son Robert V in 2019.
Together, Italia and Robbie are co-owners of several businesses, including fitness studio F45 Clarkson, gourmet charcuterie and catering company Cured Catering, and organic and sustainable loungewear line Veld Amsterdam.
Here’s what you need...
The 37-year-old actress is best known for her work in the ABC/Netflix series Designated Survivor, the Netflix show The Imperfects, and the ABC Family series Chasing Life. She has also appeared in several movies for Hallmark Channel.
Italia is married in real life and her husband is also a famous actor!
Keep reading to find out more…
Back in 2008, Italia began dating actor Robbie Amell and they have been together for over 15 years now. The couple got married in 2016 and welcomed their son Robert V in 2019.
Together, Italia and Robbie are co-owners of several businesses, including fitness studio F45 Clarkson, gourmet charcuterie and catering company Cured Catering, and organic and sustainable loungewear line Veld Amsterdam.
Here’s what you need...
- 11/23/2023
- by Just Jared
- Just Jared
When asked, in 2019, to explain why her first three features begin during the night, Alice Rohrwacher recalled the long drives she would take with her beekeeping father as a child and how, upon arrival, she’d play a game by closing her eyes: “I’d have to work it out from what I could hear, not from what I could see, so I’d listen to the place and the information would enter my mind––and then I’d open my eyes.” More than most filmmakers, Rohrwacher’s particular genius seems tied to her way of thinking: that cinema is less a reflection of our imagination than a natural extension. The best ideas in her cinema seem plucked from nowhere (Lazzaro‘s time jump; the red cake in Le Pupille), yet arrive fully formed––even organic.
Premiering on the final day of Cannes, her new film doesn’t begin at...
Premiering on the final day of Cannes, her new film doesn’t begin at...
- 6/7/2023
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
Pete Davidson is regretting some of his decisions while high.
The “Bupkis” creator admitted to Entertainment Tonight that he didn’t really think through his purchase of a decommissioned Staten Island ferry boat with former “Saturday Night Live” co-star Colin Jost. The duo bought the ferry at auction in January 2022 for $280,100.
“I have no idea what’s going on with that thing,” Davidson said. “Me and Colin were very stoned a year ago and bought a ferry. And we’re figuring it out.”
The “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” star joked, “Hopefully it turns into a Transformer and gets the fuck out of there so I can stop paying for it!”
The ferry, named John F. Kennedy, was built in 1965 and was the oldest ferry in the Staten Island fleet. Davidson and Jost bought the boat in partnership with real estate broker and comedy club owner Paul Italia, who previously...
The “Bupkis” creator admitted to Entertainment Tonight that he didn’t really think through his purchase of a decommissioned Staten Island ferry boat with former “Saturday Night Live” co-star Colin Jost. The duo bought the ferry at auction in January 2022 for $280,100.
“I have no idea what’s going on with that thing,” Davidson said. “Me and Colin were very stoned a year ago and bought a ferry. And we’re figuring it out.”
The “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” star joked, “Hopefully it turns into a Transformer and gets the fuck out of there so I can stop paying for it!”
The ferry, named John F. Kennedy, was built in 1965 and was the oldest ferry in the Staten Island fleet. Davidson and Jost bought the boat in partnership with real estate broker and comedy club owner Paul Italia, who previously...
- 6/6/2023
- by Samantha Bergeson
- Indiewire
Most impulse shopping is inconsequential, like buying a $7 drink from an overpriced cafe that wants a tip for pouring cold brew in a cup. But Pete Davidson’s version of this is a bit more complicated. It’s much easier to get rid of some subpar coffee and move on with life than ditch a massive decommissioned Staten Island ferry.
“I have no idea what’s going on with that thing,” Davidson told Entertainment Tonight about the boat he bought with his former Saturday Night Live co-worker Colin Jost. “Me...
“I have no idea what’s going on with that thing,” Davidson told Entertainment Tonight about the boat he bought with his former Saturday Night Live co-worker Colin Jost. “Me...
- 6/6/2023
- by Larisha Paul
- Rollingstone.com
Alice Rohrwacher makes movies like no one else. Her extraordinary work ventures into Italy’s labyrinthine past through fascinating pocket communities, vanishing breeds that seem suspended in time. In The Wonders, it was a family of beekeepers, like the director’s own; in Happy as Lazzaro, it was isolated sharecroppers kept in the feudal dark by exploitative landowners; and in the invigoratingly strange and lyrical La Chimera, it’s a ragtag band of tombaroli, illegal grave-robbers who dig up Etruscan relics and make their money selling those antiquities on to fences who in turn sell them to museums and collectors for vastly larger sums.
The three films make up an informal trilogy — set in the regions of Tuscany and Umbria where Rohrwacher was born and grew up — about the delicate thread between life and death, present and past. The latter remains very much alive almost everywhere you look in Italy,...
The three films make up an informal trilogy — set in the regions of Tuscany and Umbria where Rohrwacher was born and grew up — about the delicate thread between life and death, present and past. The latter remains very much alive almost everywhere you look in Italy,...
- 5/26/2023
- by David Rooney
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
A Chimera is something one tries to achieve but alas, never manages to find. It is the heart and soul of a quest in life, in different ways, for the cast of characters in writer/director Alice Rohrwacher’s beautiful new film La Chimera premiering today as one of the last entries in competition at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. It also happens to be one of the best.
Rohrwacher, who has won prizes at Cannes for two previous films, 2014’s The Wonders (Grand Prix) and 2018’s Happy As Lazaro (Screenplay) and was nominated for an Oscar this year for her live action short Le Pupille,, is back with what I think is her best film yet, an adventure, an ethereal and spiritual journey, a love story even on different levels, and a heist movie like no other. The latter refers to the center of action here as it is set...
Rohrwacher, who has won prizes at Cannes for two previous films, 2014’s The Wonders (Grand Prix) and 2018’s Happy As Lazaro (Screenplay) and was nominated for an Oscar this year for her live action short Le Pupille,, is back with what I think is her best film yet, an adventure, an ethereal and spiritual journey, a love story even on different levels, and a heist movie like no other. The latter refers to the center of action here as it is set...
- 5/26/2023
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
Editor’s Note: This review originally published during the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. Neon will release “La Chimera” in theaters March 29, 2024.
Just when it seemed like Cannes couldn’t get any worse for “Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny,” it turns out that James Mangold’s $300 million sequel wasn’t even the festival’s best movie about a sad and grumpy archeologist who chases a band of tomb raiders across the waters of Italy in order to stop them from selfishly exploiting a priceless artifact from before the birth of Christ. What are the odds?
Strange as that coincidence might be, it’s no surprise that Alice Rohrwacher’s new film is better than a Disney blockbuster that happens to share the same general milieu, but it’s worth pointing out that the arthouse version of this story is far more entertaining than the studio blockbuster take. It’s also...
Just when it seemed like Cannes couldn’t get any worse for “Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny,” it turns out that James Mangold’s $300 million sequel wasn’t even the festival’s best movie about a sad and grumpy archeologist who chases a band of tomb raiders across the waters of Italy in order to stop them from selfishly exploiting a priceless artifact from before the birth of Christ. What are the odds?
Strange as that coincidence might be, it’s no surprise that Alice Rohrwacher’s new film is better than a Disney blockbuster that happens to share the same general milieu, but it’s worth pointing out that the arthouse version of this story is far more entertaining than the studio blockbuster take. It’s also...
- 5/26/2023
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Cineflix Productions has confirmed it is in development with comedian Bonnie McFarlane on a scripted comedy series based on her 2016 memoir, “You’re Better Than Me.”
The project is inspired by McFarlane’s time as a high schooler in Cold Lake, Alberta, in the mid-1980s.
McFarlane serves as the creator and writer for the half-hour series, which takes place on a farm “294 kilometres outside the nearest pizza delivery zone.” There, a 16-year-old Bonnie flexes her smart mouth, hangs out with her Bff bovine, and recognizes that she’s not the easiest person to get along with.
“Neither she nor her cow are part of the ‘in’ crowd,” reads a show description. “Bonnie is desperate to escape her farm and see the world. There’s just one thing stopping her: herself…And a bunch of other stuff.”
McFarlane, whose credits include radio and television gigs, has an HBO special, two Comedy Central specials,...
The project is inspired by McFarlane’s time as a high schooler in Cold Lake, Alberta, in the mid-1980s.
McFarlane serves as the creator and writer for the half-hour series, which takes place on a farm “294 kilometres outside the nearest pizza delivery zone.” There, a 16-year-old Bonnie flexes her smart mouth, hangs out with her Bff bovine, and recognizes that she’s not the easiest person to get along with.
“Neither she nor her cow are part of the ‘in’ crowd,” reads a show description. “Bonnie is desperate to escape her farm and see the world. There’s just one thing stopping her: herself…And a bunch of other stuff.”
McFarlane, whose credits include radio and television gigs, has an HBO special, two Comedy Central specials,...
- 3/23/2023
- by Amber Dowling
- Variety Film + TV
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.