The film tells the story of the Michelucci family, from the 1970s to the present day: the central character is the stunningly beautiful Anna, the lively, frivolous and sometimes embarrassing mother of Bruno and Valeria. Everything begins in the Summer of 1971, at the annual Summer beauty pageant held at Livorno's most popular bathing establishment. Anna is unexpectedly crowned "Most Beautiful Mother", unwittingly stirring the violent jealousy of her husband, a Non-commissioned officer of Carabinieri. From then on, chaos strikes the family and for Anna, Bruno and his sister Valeria, it is the start of an adventure that will only end thirty years later. The whole movie is set when Bruno, a high school teacher who ended up living in Milan after managing to escape from Livorno and his mother, returns to his hometown to be at his mother's side during her very last days, remembering many of the key episodes of his family life through a long series of flashbacks.
The First Beautiful Thing has an approval rating of 74% on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 19 reviews, and an average rating of 6.6/10.[1]Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 62 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generaly favorable reviews".[2]
In July 2010, La prima cosa bella (The first beautiful Thing) won four Silver Ribbon awards: Director of the Best Film of the Year (Paolo Virzi), Best Actress Micaela Ramazzotti and Stefania Sandrelli, Best Screenplay Paolo Virzi, Francesco Bruni, Francesco Piccolo) and Best Costume Design to the Oscar winner Gabriella Pescucci. The film was screened at some international film festivals including the Open Roads, New York, the Shanghai International Film Festival, the Annecy Cinéma Italien Film Festival and the NICE Italian Film Festival, San Francisco.
