The film revolves around Gemma, who got married and brought her only child, Pietro, to Sarajevo. She seems to be trying to find the place of his father's death, who died in the Bosnian conflict while she remembers more romance and tragedy.
Castellitto clings to the Duraflame fires within for Twice Born, a handsomely crafted but empty feature hoping to recreate Eastern European horror and soap opera intimacy.
Twice Born wants so desperately to be taken seriously that it creates an unnecessarily complex narrative, void of any chemistry-building moments for its romantic leads.
Sergio Castellitto's film projects a tumultuous love story against the backdrop of the Bosnian War for independence, and then seems unaware that the foreground overshadows it in the worst possible way.
This European production is thoroughly cheesy and phony, nowhere less so than in its florid, undeliverable dialogue, which sounds like it's been translated, poorly, from various languages into English.
Detroit News
December 06, 2013
One odd movie, from the casting of its leads to its backdrop to its final twist.
The type of cinematic slog one watches and thinks, 'This would actually be much more interesting as a book.' And that makes sense, really, since that's its original medium.
It's debatable whether the best love stories are also the "weirdest," as Emile Hirsch's character declares in "Twice Born." But they do require chemistry, the missing piece in his pairing with Penélope Cruz.
