We like her, and we like the dignified and sad waiter Fernando (Bruno Ganz), and we like her friend Grazia (Marina Massironi), who is a ''holistic beautician and masseuse,'' and we like the sweet old florist Fermo (Felice Andreasi), and we like the plump, perspiring Costantino (Giuseppe Battiston), who is the plumber and amateur detective hired to track her down.
We like them to begin with, and we like them more because they occupy an obscure corner of Venice, the city above all others that encourages us to yield to our romantic impulses. We like them, and so did the David Di Donatello Awards, the Italian version of the Oscars, which showered ''Bread and Tulips'' with Davids for best picture, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, director, and three more besides. The Italians say this is their favorite movie in years, and they are not without reason.
Maglietta plays Rosalba, a housewife who is taken utterly for granted by her family. When she loses an earring down the drain at a highway rest stop, her husband and teenage children board their tourist bus, and it pulls away without anyone even missing her. Rosalba's husband calls on his cell phone; he's mad at her--because, of course, it was her fault that they didn't miss her. Rosalba impulsively hitches a ride with a friendly woman, and later, more impulsively, hitches another ride--to Venice, where she has never been. Suddenly this has turned into her vacation.
In the serene city she meets characters who are not likely to exist in real life--but here is the point, they're played as if they were. With a few lira in her handbag, she visits a lonely little restaurant near the train station and meets Fernando, a waiter played by Bruno Ganz with a sad countenance and dignified charm. The cook is sick, but Fernando prepares a cold dish for her, and serves it as if she were a queen. One thing leads to another, not in an obvious way, and soon she has a job with Fermo the florist, is living in an extra room of Fernando's flat, and has made friends with Grazia whose profession may extend beyond massage, or at least liberally define it.
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