‘Misunderstood’ or — A Loving Lie?
‘Misunderstood’ (1966) is an Italian drama about a British diplomat, John Duncombe (Anthony Quayle), living in Florence faced with breaking the news of their mother’s death to his two young sons. He decides to tell the oldest, Andrea (Stefano Colagrande), as he feels he’s old enough to handle the emotional blow but elects to withhold the information from his youngest, Milo (Simone Giannozzi), fearing it will crush the sensitive little boy.
It’s an understandable course of action but one we’re acutely aware will only make matters worse because denial never works and the truth cannot be delayed indefinitely (we know this is going to ultimately bite them in the ass at some point). It also raises another question — is neglect more harmful than loss?
If all this sounds depressing and heartbreaking it’s worth remembering that director Luigi Comencini made some of Italy’s greatest comedies, so even though ‘Misunderstood’ tackles possibly life’s most serious subject — grief and how we cope with it — Comencini never forgets there’s more to being alive than unrelenting sorrow. Not only that but he was an expert director of children.
So the moments that stick in our hearts are less the scenes of tragedy and more the cherished flashes of laughter, love and connection: Andrea and Milo teasing their nanny, riding their bike or pretending to be spies. We’re watching children lost in blissful moments of the now which is why it’s so devastating when their memory, and grief, returns.
The emotional impact hits harder because of the performances by Colagrande and Giannozzi as their Andrea and Milo are two of the most natural, real and believable children in film. Milo, especially, is frequently hilarious such as when he silently tries to communicate to his father over lunch a terrible secret about their dining companions and the expression of desperation on his face is adorable beyond belief. Yet it’s these moments of joy that pull at our emotions most intensely because we’re always aware we’re looking at two children who have just lost their mother.
Milo, being so young, is also the one who speaks the truth and cuts straight to the point, so while we observe Andrea and his father tentatively step around each other in their clumsy attempts to connect as father and son Milo just comes right out with everything like a little force of nature, and the effect leaves us wanting to both laugh and cry.
When the inevitable happens and the consequences of the mishandling of loss finally erupt the film’s roots as a Victorian melodramatic novel become fully apparent. Even Comencini himself admitted the script was mechanically designed to make you cry, so when the final occurrence takes place it can’t help feeling a tad contrived (well, of course you’re going to make me cry, movie, if you do THAT!). It’s intensely sad but also a little too much which could explain why I wasn’t quite left in the floods of tears I was expecting.
But it doesn’t matter because by that time Comencini has already devastated and destroyed our hearts along the way as, much with life, it’s less about the final farewell and more the precious time spent with these characters and the knowledge that we are finite that matter. It’s less about the loss of life and love but that they even exist at all.
‘Misunderstood’ is a deeply moving, yet never depressing, movie about childhood, grief and the ability/inability to connect with each other. That’s why it’s vitally important we listen because at some point those voices will no longer be around.
