Vera

I think the most interesting part of this film is the grey area between reality and fiction. The plot is fictional but the characters are real as protagonist Vera Gemma plays out a fictional version of her own life that appears to be deeply rooted in reality. It covers several themes such as the burden of living in the shadow of a famous parent, pressure to live up to unrealistic beauty standards and expectations of success, yearning to be loved for who you are whilst ultimately succumbing to relationships that are of a transactional nature. The film contains several poignant scenes such as a visit to the graveyard with a friend or a voice over of Vera and her sister Giuliana revisiting old reels of film and photographs of their early childhood. In these scenes you get the sense that you are watching the life story of a real person, and they are woven together with a fictional plot line about a young boy from a poor family to create an almost tragic portrait of Vera who could never really escape a life of being 'the daughter of'.