Easy Living ( Orso Miyakawa & Peter Miyakawa , 2019 ): Italy

Reviewed by Maria Loza. Viewed at The Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2020.

Easy living was an amazing aiming film, leaving the theatre, I felt the need to go watch it again because it was an incredible film. The characters and their development was something so heartfelt and so realistic to what is going on in the world right now. The film is all about an immigrant stuck on the Italian and France border who then with the help of unlikely friends, who create a plan to get him across. The main characters are Don, an American tennis teacher, Camilla who smuggles medicine and Camillas younger brother Brando. 

The meaning behind ‘Easy living’ is addressed in the film, with a heart to heart between the characters, Don begins to say that he no longer wants to do this ‘easy living’ as he’s unhappy with his situation and he’s willing to take the risk of helping Elvis. The characters’ developments and arcs are inspiring. As Don has the biggest arc, he develops from a man who’s afraid to commit a crime of sneaking Elvis across the border and who ran away from his problems in America and is hiding in Italy to someone who wants to help a friend he made.

The message behind this film is something I also really appreciated this film. This film’s message and goal were to create a friendship between unlikely people. Relevant to a lot of countries today who see lots of immigrants. It’s a message that could reach a broad audience. The directors mentioned this is in the Q&A, that they wanted to create this humane feeling of becoming friends with immigrants, where these very different people become friends, play games and laugh together. Showing to people that you can be friends with people you’d never thought could be your friend. Elvis goes from a stranger to becoming a dear friend. 

The cinematography was very beautiful. The location was beautiful and the film throughout had a lot of scenic shots of the beachfront. One-shot that really struck me was the scene when Elvis and the rest set off into the plan and Elvis leaves his beach chair at the beach. It seems very symbolic, almost as if he’s leaving and planning on not coming back.

I would recommend this film to people because it has you emotionally invested by the end. Seeing these people come together to help Elvis reunite with his wife is moving. This film made the audience sympathize with Elvis, who just couldn’t get to his pregnant wife just because of an imaginary line. The way the directors portrayed Elvis as anybody else and created a friendship between these characters was touching, almost inspiring especially for me coming from a family of immigrants.