The film “Vermiglio” suffers from a problem familiar to anyone who's seen a recipe gone wrong: too many ingredients can spoil the dish. Writer-director Maura Delpero’s latest work, which received a Golden Globe nomination for Best International Film, centers on an Italian family living in an Alpine village during 1944. The father and schoolteacher, Cesare (Tommaso Regno), and his wife raise eight children while secretly providing refuge to two Italian soldiers who have deserted their posts, attempting to keep them hidden from the Axis forces pursuing them. During this time of isolation, one soldier, Pietro (Giuseppe Di Domenico), develops a romantic relationship with Cesare’s oldest daughter, Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), and they eventually marry and start a family together. However, when the war concludes and Pietro travels to Sicily to reconnect with his relatives, unexpected complications arise, exposing a significant secret and disrupting the lives of his wife and her family. If the movie had focused solely on this central storyline, it might have been worthwhile. Instead, numerous other plot threads are introduced, which significantly weakens the overall story and results in a confusing and disjointed experience, especially during the initial portion of the film. Many of these additional storylines aren’t fully developed, and opportunities to explore the core narrative are missed. The slow pace at the beginning also tests viewers' patience; it becomes difficult to remain engaged. It isn’t until the script concentrates on its main focus that the movie starts to become somewhat enjoyable, but by then (around an hour into the film), it is too late to redeem the project because viewer interest in the characters has already faded. It's disappointing that the filmmakers chose this approach, as a more streamlined version of the story could have been quite beautiful and captivating. As it stands, the movie feels like a collection of disconnected ideas and themes, leaving audiences eager for an ending that takes far too long to arrive.

Source on TMDB