Stork Day (2004)

Such a frustrating disappointment

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The plot in this movie has probably already been developed elsewhere but the way it's delivered is original. Filippo is a selfish and arrogant TV journalist who goes to the Canary islands to shoot a documentary about storks. At first everything seems to be normal but the day after he realizes that he's still living the day before. Plus he can't leave the small and lovely island he's on because every day the sea is in storm. So every day Filippo is living the 13th of August, always having the same situations and dealing with the same people. However, knowing in advance how people will act and what kind of situations he'll go through, he manages to get a kick out of his experience by doing crazy stuff among which being arrested and committing suicide. Besides the comic side of the story, there is the serious one in which Filippo every (same) day that passes learns to be a better man and be helpful to his friends and to the local community.

Imitation is the best form of flattery. In an unusual reverse, the Italian cinema made a remake of a successful American comedy, "Groundhog Day", adapting it to the screen in which an arrogant man, a television personality, gets stuck in time. Filippo, the host of a nature oriented program, is an insufferable idiot who must coordinate his own costume to the animal that is being shown.The producer of the show decides to play a trick on Filippo when he sends him to the Canary islands in search of the storks that make their habitat in the crater of a volcano. Accompanied only by his cameraman, Enrico, he makes a nuisance of himself by continuing to make his demands on the modest hotel where he has to stay, to Rita the woman that is in charge of seeing the animals are taken care of, and to everyone that comes in contact with him.For all he knows, Filippo cannot get past August 13. He knows exactly what happens to whom because he has lived the different situations on what must be the longest day of his life.The film directed by Giulio Manfredonia, capitalizes on the bubbling personality of Filippo, who is an unhappy individual. His stay in the remote outpost makes him grow up, something he needed badly. Goya Toledo is Rita, the woman that catches Filippo's fancy. Fabio De Luigi, Asuncion Balaguer, and the rest of the supporting cast do a nice job for Mr. Manfredonia.Comparisons are sometimes unfair, but unfortunately, the Italian version, although with its own merits, does not measure to the original film, which happens to most remakes. One good point for movie makers trying to improve on something that cannot be improved.

***SPOILERS AHEAD**** This is an Italian remake of Groundhog Day, with a really good cast and several fun passages. Antonio Albanese is very good in the Bill Murray role and all the rest of the cast is up to this standard. The setting is an island of the Canaries where the unsympathetic lead is stranded for a storm and forced to re-live the same day over and over again. With time, the arrogant journalist will find love and compassion and he will be able to stop the curse and choose to live a different life. A bitter sweet comedy and an unusual remake of an American movie here in Europe, not the other way around (normally is Hollywood to get French or even Italian movies and make them again adding more budget and big names).Very good