Amanda hasn’t done a lot of living in her 24 years. She’s never had a job, a boyfriend, or even a friend. She doesn’t fit in with her family — all of them pharmacists — even though she loves the clan’s longtime housekeeper and she’s got a real bond with her too-serious young niece. She’s got a shitty apartment of her own, but it’s outfitted with fancy furniture she seems to have pilfered from the family home a few blocks down the street. She goes to secret raves to pass the time, stands outside the local cinema in hopes of catching a glimpse of someone who might make for a reasonable pal, and has begun harboring a desire to free a horse from a local farm. She’s addicted to her phone, which speaks to her in stilted Siri-ese and is programmed to only call her “Sexy Mama.” Who else would?
She’s rude, sad, silly, and very lonely, and she’s exactly the kind of heroine Gen Z doesn’t just need but deserves. She is, after all, the kind of person an entire film is named after.
In Carolina Cavalli’s painfully funny “Amanda,” the very watchable Benedetta Porcaroli stars as the titular young woman (does Amanda know “Lady Bird”? we bet she does) as she embarks on something of a search for self, punctuated by the deadpan, the absurd, and the disaffected. The trick: Even with all that ironic distance, we can’t help but root for her.
The part about Amanda never having a friend? That’s only partially true. When the film opens, we briefly meet young Amanda as she blithely floats in her family’s fancy swimming pool (the pharmacological arts really pay) while her only friend Rebecca zones out on a nearby chaise lounge. But while this scene might initially scan as a hazy little slice of childhood, Amanda can’t help but ruin it, tossing herself into the pool and (maybe?) nearly drowning in the process, at least until her dedicated domestic worker saves her. More than a decade later, and Rebecca is long gone, the entire family can’t get over Amanda’s gall at (possibly?) almost dying, and the family’s maid Judy (Ana Cecilia Ponce) remains her only pal.
Amanda knows she’s weird, but she’s not so interested in changing that (former model Porcaroli is gorgeous, but she’s also credibly off-putting when tapping into all of Amanda’s numerous affectations). Having a friend, though? That might be nice. When Judy lets slip that Rebecca was once targeted as her BFF (the girls’ own mothers are best friends, with some serious distance between them), Amanda sets out on a quest to right what she believes is her life’s most grievous wrong: make Rebecca her friend, for real.
But if we think Amanda is strange (she wears the same outfit each day, including culottes and a crocheted vest, her idea of spicing things up is to add a fancy brooch, leading to one of the film’s best sight gags, of which there are many), shut-in Rebecca (Galatéa Bellugi) is an even tougher nut to crack. Yet, Amanda won’t be deterred, even as the rest of her life starts careening into other interesting corners, including a possible boyfriend, a potential job, and a growing closeness with the other people who populate her rarefied existence.
Cavalli’s Italian-language feature (with English subtitles) previously screened at both Venice and TIFF, which should give some insight into its level of craftsmanship and voice (read: high!). Cavalli, who also wrote the film’s screenplay, is clearly pulling from a variety of inspirations — Wes Anderson, Sofia Coppola, Yorgos Lanthimos, Noah Baumbach, and Paolo Sorrentino all spring to mind — when it comes to her deadpan, highly mannered debut. But thanks to both Cavalli’s clear affection for her lead character and Porcaroli’s winning performance, there’s a certain sweetness to “Amanda” that also appeals.
Even as Amanda seeks out companionship in the weirdest of spaces — like logging on to a series of video chat rooms clearly made for sex stuff, where she runs into a dude who wants to talk dirty to her through the use of a can of spices — her desire to be part of the world charms. Amanda may be socially awkward (often plain old horrible to be around) and prone to bizarre demands, but she’s also just a person trying to make her way during a period of existence in which disconnection is everyone’s standard setting.
She’s the kind of girl who will sit outside your bedroom for days on end until you’re willing to talk, the kind of girl who dreams of earning enough loyalty points at the local grocery store to trade them in for a fancy fan, the kind of girl who will free a lonely horse just because she thinks that’s what he wants. In a world where everyone feels lonely, Amanda might be our most authentic avatar, someone willing to get super weird in the hopes it will lead somewhere great. For Cavalli and “Amanda,” the results speak for themselves: The film, and its titular heroine, are great indeed.
Grade: B+
Oscilloscope will release “Amanda” in select NY and LA theaters on Friday, July 7.
