A fun day at the beach has unforeseen ripple effects in “The Macaluso Sisters,” Emma Dante’s adaptation of her play of the same name. Comprised of three parts that catch up with the sisters in their youth, middle age, and later years, the award-winning Italian drama is a sensitive exploration of family, grief, and time.
The first and most significant portion of the Venice film sees the sisters — Maria, Pinuccia, Lia, Katia, and Antonella — heading to the sea on a hot summer’s day. The eldest siblings, Maria and Pinuccia, dote on the youngest, Antonella. Pinuccia and middle child Lia are constantly butting heads, and Maria sneaks off to see her crush. Pre-teen Katia, the second-youngest, kind of gets lost in the shuffle.
For the most part, it’s just another day, albeit a pretty good one. There’s swimming and sun, snacks, jokes, and few squabbles here and there. But then there’s an accident that sends the sisters’ lives in a whole new direction.
In the latter two thirds of “The Macaluso Sisters,” we get to see the long-term impact that day at the beach had on the women. Some of them are emotionally stunted, or are struggling with their mental health. Some have managed to move forward, some have sacrificed their own happiness in the interest of keeping the family together. Meanwhile, time keeps passing, something the film underlines via the sisters’ deteriorating apartment: paint fades and cracks, dust and junk accumulate, the walls begin to crumble.
That exploration of time and age, and how they can be warped by grief even as the world keeps turning, is what makes the film memorable. For the Macaluso sisters, time froze that day at the beach — the worst day of their lives — and yet they keep growing and aging. Isn’t that one of the cruelest ironies of being alive — that when your heart breaks, when your world ends, life still goes on?
“The Macaluso Sisters” is now playing at Film Forum in New York City, and will open in select theaters nationwide throughout August. Dante wrote the pic with Elena Stancanelli and Giorgio Vasta.
