From the exiled Chilean communist poet Pablo Neruda, the temporary mailman on an illiterate Italian island learns about language, about love, about life. (Ironically enough, the actor in the part, Massimo Troisi, died immediately after the completion of shooting.) The teacher-pupil stuff — "What are metaphors?" etc. — is palatably sweet, but the little-man stuff — the ingenuous, self-abasing, sadsack, lovesick, lockjawed, calf-eyed hero — presses on into cloying. And the ending is not just sadistic tearjerking, but dishonest. Once Neruda departs the island, there's no evidence that the hero does anything other than pine after the man, no evidence that he puts the lessons learned to good use, no evidence that he himself gets anything out of the waves, the wind, the stars. With Philippe Noiret and Maria Grazia Cucinotta; directed by Michael Radford. (1995) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.