‘Ketticè’ Review: Luca Guadagnino-Produced Sicilian Teen Stoner Dramedy Suffers From a Lack of Spark

They say that in the age of mass communication, cultures become homogenized, so that nearly everywhere in the developed and more quickly developing world you’ll find blue jeans, instant noodles and cellphones. But the taste for regionally specific entertainment stays strong — especially when it comes to visual fiction for and about young people, who hunger for stories about other kids like themselves, speaking with their dialect, displaying manners and customs that are familiar and settings they recognize.

All of this is to say that maybe you need to have been a Sicilian teenager in 2012 to really respond to Giovanni Tortorici’s Ketticè ; many others might feel a little irked and bored by this tale of mostly vapid but good-looking teens getting high and messing their lives up in Palermo. The presence of Luca Guadagnino’s name in the credits as a producer and Monica Bellucci’s entertaining but all-too-scant turn as the main character’s tetchy mother may attract offshore interest, especially among streamers in need of fresh content. Related Stories Movies 'I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming' Review: A Ukrainian Trans Man and His Wife Face Excruciating Choices in a Sensitive, Sensuous Drama Movies 'The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer' Review: Two Argentinian Farm Girls Grow Up Before Our Very Eyes in a Transcendent Documentary Ketticè The Bottom Line Dude, where's my Cinquecento? Venue: Locarno Film Festival Cast: Salvatore Gallina, Rachele Testagrossa, Monica Belluci, Davide Cirri, Rocco Sanfilippo, Anita Teresi, Giulio Amico, Salvatore Claudio Gallina di Lorenzo, Riccardo Abbate, Vincenzo Pirello, Nicolo Ferrante, Tommaso Cristiano Wirz, Ida Poerio, Marino Iaco, Stefania Raffadali Director/screenwriter: Giovanni Tortorici 1 hour 47 minutes

The fact that writer-director Tortorici ( Diciannove ) was born in 1996, thus was 16 in 2012, is probably the main reason the film is set in that period, although it could just as easily have been set in 2025 or the late 00s, so long as it was a time when social media was up and running. In Ketticè ’s time frame, all the kids are still blithely using Facebook to message each other, update their status and bully one another, the platform having not yet become the domain of the old, cranky and terminally uncool. This matters because quite a lot of the action happens digitally, with characters’ messages and posts appearing onscreen as they make assignations or insult one another and so on.

When not indirectly increasing Mark Zuckerberg’s growing billions, 16-year-old Giuilo (Salvatore Gallina) is a pretty normal kid growing up in Palermo, in Sicily, attending a private school and living in a large, antique-stuffed villa with his reasonably well-off parents (played by Bellucci and Tommaso Cristiano Wirz). An early dinner scene with Giulio’s imperious nonna (Stefania Raffadali) establishes that she’s the one with most of the money and power in that family, much to the chagrin of Giulio’s mama, who spends a lot of time sniping at her husband and mother-in-law and wishing she was back up North where she was raised.