Tulipani: Love, Honour and a Bicycle

To tell a tall tale, the Italians speak loudly, with much exaggeration, and accompany themselves eagerly with fast moving hands. Subtlety is not on the menu.

A rather wild and wooly story, "Tulipani" is told from several points in time, which proves a tad confusing at first, but soon enough, once the audience is priorly strapped in, congeals into a starchy, pasta water whole. We start in Canada, travel back to Holland, but everything really happens in a small Italian town. Locales and languages shift on a slippery dime, which adds to the fun craziness of this engrossing fairy tale of true romance.

Gauke, a stoic, heroic Dutch man's man winds up bringing much more than just tulips to a folksy village in desperate need of saving. The loopy plot unfolds from the very colourful memory of the local tavern owner, which takes it into a foggy, grey area. Who knows how things actually went down, but it sure is fun when guided by an old fashioned, wide-eyed story teller.

Over the top? Entertaining? Whimsical? Cliched? Silly? Big-hearted? Unbelievable? You betcha.