‘Happy as Lazzaro’ comes and goes like an airy fable but doesn’t make as much of an impact as it wants to. Through a lack of convincing and earned pivot, its first half in realism drags down the escapism it yearns for in its second half. Its ambition is to be commended and is definitely a film that deserves to be seen, but as a whole is just...

A tale (or fable?) of social commentary by directress and writer Alice Rohrwacher (that I first knew in the short "Le Pupille") in rural Italy with touches of anti capitalism and class division, where sharecroppers live, without knowing their semi-slavery state because of lack of knowledge. Lazzaro the protagonist, is an innocent character that...