Review – Life Is Beautiful

I confess that I didn’t come into this experience with any expectation that I was going to like it. In general European comedies don’t do that much for me. However, there have been some notable exceptions over the years, and this is one of them. Judging only by clips and trailers, I would have guessed that I’d find Roberto Benigni extremely annoying, but oddly enough he’s kind of endearing in a silly, grows-on-you sort of way. The first half (or so) of the movie is a Chaplin-esque screwball comedy about a free-spirited waiter’s adventures in pre-World War Two Italy. Only occasionally do dark jabs at the nation’s descent into Fascism intrude upon the light-hearted, romantic flavor of the film. But then the production does an abrupt about-face as our hero, his wife and their son are sent to a concentration camp. The rest of the movie is one grim graveyard joke after another. For the most part it’s charming and sad in equal parts, but every once in awhile I found myself musing about Jerry Lewis’s legendary, unreleased Holocaust comedy. Worth seeing