CATERINA IN THE BIG CITY — *** — Alice Teghil, Sergio Castellitto, Margherita Buy; in Italian, with English subtitles; not rated, probable R (profanity, vulgarity, violence).

The real title of "Caterina in the Big City" is "Caterina Va in Citta," which loosely translates to "Caterina Goes to the City." Thankfully, that's pretty much the only thing about this film that gets lost in translation.

This comedy-drama does deal with some of the politics of its home country, Italy, but its themes are universal — cultural elitism, the importance of family and having a sense of belonging. In many ways, "Caterina" is as much a social satire as it is a coming-of-age story.

The title character is Caterina Iacovoni (Alice Teghil), a teen who's been living in rural Italy, far from the big city. She's happy there, but her schoolteacher father Giancarlo (Sergio Castellitto) has taken a new job in Rome — and, for good measure, on his way out he trashes his lazy, unenthused former students.

Though he's excited about the move, Caterina feels like a fish out of water, especially at her new school, where she's been asked to decide which clique she wants to belong to, the one run by the froopy, free-spirited Margherita (Federica Sbrenna) or the one headed up by the spoiled-rich Daniela (Carolina Iaquaniello).

The move proves to be a no-win situation for Caterina and seemingly a no-lose one for her father, who hopes to foist his unread novel on Margherita's poetess mother and gain the ear of Daniela's influential politician father.

The film uses its surprisingly sly humor to win over the audience and also manages to say quite a bit about the differences between the haves and have-nots of the world, yet without becoming too full of itself.

However, co-screenwriter/director Paolo Virzi is less successful when dealing with the marital strife between Caterina's parents, despite solid performances by Castellitto and Margherita Buy. The real surprise is newcomer Teghil, who has an endearing presence, and who delivers some of her character's better zingers with real confidence. She even makes the generally unpalatable wrap-around narration go down well.

"Caterina in the Big City" is not rated but would probably receive an R for occasional use of strong sexual profanity and crude sexual slang terms, as well as some brief violence (including slapping). Running time: 90 minutes.

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