AllMovie

A young man who was an outcast in his own family finds himself embraced by another, with troubling results, in this drama based on a novel by Italo Svevo. Zeno (Fabrizo Rongione) is the son of a wealthy family whose father (Toni Bertorelli) did not place much faith in the young man's abilities; during their final moments together, the father's parting gesture was a literal slap in the face, and as a condition of his father's last will and testament, Zeno will not receive his share of the family fortune until he's shown the ability to hold down a job for an entire year. Zeno finds employment at an art gallery owned by Giovanni Malfenti (Mimmo Calopresti), a longtime friend of the family, and Giovanni grows fond enough of Zeno that he brings him home to meet his four daughters. Shy Zeno soon becomes infatuated with Giovanni's oldest daughter Ada (Chiara Mastroianni), but when he fails to make the first move, Ada does it for him, and before long she's talked Zeno into her bed. But Ada quickly loses interest in Zeno, and the process begins to repeat itself as Alberta (Claudia Coli), the next-oldest of the Malfenti sisters, sets her sights on the young man, who is drawn into a strange web of jealousy and competition among the various members of the family. Le Parole Di Mio Padre was screened at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival as part of the Un Certain Regard series.