Italian for Beginners is a 2000 Danish romantic comedy film written and directed by Lone Scherfig, and starring Anders W. Berthelsen, Lars Kaalund and Peter Gantzler, together with Ann Eleonora Jørgensen, Anette Støvelbæk and Sara Indrio Jensen. The film was made by the austere principles of the Dogme 95 movement, including the use of handheld video cameras and natural lighting, and is known as Dogme XII. However, in contrast to most Dogme films which are harsh and serious in tone, Italian for Beginners is a light-hearted comedy. It was made on a $600,000 budget, and went on to gross over 27 times that. In May 2010, it was officially revealed that Scherfig "borrowed" part of her plot from the Irish novel Evening Class by Maeve Binchy. Zentropa agreed to pay a non-disclosed compensation to Binchy.
Plot
Andreas, a widowed pastor, arrives in a Danish suburb to take over religious duties from the previous pastor who, due to a crisis of faith after his own wife's death, has become irreligious and even punched the organist causing him to be hospitalized. Believing his stay will be temporary Andreas stays in the local hotel where he meets one of the employees, Jørgen Mortensen, who is suffering a crisis as he has been asked to fire the temperamental Hal-Finn who works in the hotel restaurant and is also his best friend. Hal-Finn goes to visit hairdresser Karen and is immediately attracted to her, though his visit is cut short when she must go tothe hospital to attend to her alcoholic mother. Meanwhile clumsy baker Olympia tends to her disabled and abusive father, who constantly berates her. Olympia decides to join a beginner Italian class in order to feel closer to her Italian mother however the first night she joins the instructor dies. Olympia returns home to find that her own father has died as well. Sometime later she receives the call that her estranged mother has died as well. Showing up to her funeral she meets Karen and the two discover that they are sisters and that their parents split them up when they divorced. In order to protect Olympia, Karen does not tell her about the fact that their mother was not Italian and was an alcoholic. After finally being fired for being rude to customers Hal-Finn becomes the Italian teacher and Olympia persuades both Andreas and her sister to join. Karen and Hal-Finn begin a romantic affair but during Christmas Karen overhears Hal-Finn disparaging her mother and becomes angry calling their relationship off. Jørgen Mortensen approaches Andreas for advice about his impotence and his trouble talking to Hal-Finn's Italian friend Giulia and decides to ask her out for a walk. In the meantime Olympia receives a letter from the bank telling her of a massive inheritance from her father. She decides to spend it taking the Italian class to Venice. In Venice Jørgen proposes to Giulia who accepts, Karen forgives Hal-Finn after he cuts off his too-long bangs and Andreas suggests that Olympia, whose klutzy behaviour has caused her to be fired from 43 jobs, come to work as a chorister. He then reveals that he plans to stay in the parish.
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 88% based on 85 reviews, and an average rating of 7.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Unlike many romantic comedies, the charming Italian for Beginners feels natural and genuinely heart-warming." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 77 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
