Sabrina Ferilli is good at playing women who seem lively and assured without hiding their sadness. Her Ramona in The Great Beauty is where we would start, though the familiar casting can make her work too easy to take for granted.
Fi1m perspective
Sabrina Ferilli's women often seem capable of looking after themselves, but she leaves room for sadness beneath their liveliness. In The Great Beauty (2013), her Ramona gives emotional weight to an ensemble that could easily be lost among the parties. We were moved by her because she made a supporting character matter beyond the film's considerable display. Paolo Sorrentino allows himself more indulgence than we would like, yet Ferilli is a reason to stay with him.
The useful line through her career is her work with Paolo Virzì. Living It Up (1994) was the breakthrough, followed by August Vacation (1996), with its class and family tensions, and the later reunion of A Whole Life Ahead (2008). Those collaborations gave her opportunities to play ordinary women with detail and sympathy. The popular Christmas comedies she made with Neri Parenti from the mid-2000s belong in that account too. Her work has moved between auteur drama and broad comedy, rather than leaving one behind as a respectable career supposedly should.
The familiar casting has its limits: an earthy, sensual Roman woman can become a category before we have noticed the performance. Ferilli is most interesting when she gives that woman sadness and strength as well as liveliness, and that is where her naturalism matters. The broadness of the Parenti comedies is a caveat for anyone arriving from Sorrentino, though we see no reason to regard popular entertainment as something she ought to apologise for.
The Great Beauty brought her greater international visibility, though the Virzì films make clear that this was no sudden arrival. It also gives us the clearest recommendation: a funny, moving film that is worth forgiving for the stretches when its parties run on. Toni Servillo keeps the drifting writer interesting through wounded charm, while Ferilli gives us a reason to look beyond him. Start with Ramona, then try the Virzì collaborations; do not expect the same film around her.
Biography
Sabrina Ferilli is an Italian actress who has worked in theatre and film since the late 1980s. Born in Rome, she trained briefly at the liceo classico Orazio and attempted entry to the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia before beginning with small film roles.
Her breakthrough came with Americano rosso (1991) and Living It Up (1994), for which she received a Nastro d'Argento for Best Actress. She is known for repeated collaborations with directors Paolo Virzì and Neri Parenti, and for her performance as Ramona in Paolo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty (2013). She has also appeared in television and provided Italian voice work for animated films.
Ferilli has won five Nastro d'Argento awards and other honours including Ciak d'oro and Globo d'oro. She has been married to manager Flavio Cattaneo since 2011.
