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A film crew with a controversial producer struggle to finish filming a movie in 1939 Rome as the country prepares itself for war.

Well-known director Davide Rieti (Alfred Molina) is making a film in Rome during 1939 as Europe is on the brink of war. Rieti finds himself in an unique position of having not only international issues threatening to stop the production of his movie, but also the fact that he is both Jewish and gay, two things that have been declared illegal. Rieti begins paying for “protection” or at the very least, for officials to look the other way regarding his homosexuality and background. This proves difficult when an article appears in the paper with an unnamed source providing details about his sex life and his Jewish background. Rieti’s love interest is an Italian actor, Renzo Davario, (Rupert Friend), who is not only a fascist, but bi-sexual and has a girlfriend on the side. Renzo realizes what Rieti’s connections could do for his career and hits his female lover when she admits to be the anonymous source for the article on Rieti.

As government officials come to the set to arrest or beat up workers, we see Rieti and his director, Lazlo Molnar, (Andras Balint), try to keep the production moving. The cast and crew is made of up many nationalities who want to see the movie completed—especially famous German actress, Kristina Baumgarten, (Catherine McCormack), as well as British actor James Clavel, (Jonathan Pryce).

Soon Rieti begins losing money and must use his art collection to keep the production afloat. To add to his frustrations, his leading actor, Clavel, is a morphine addict and is also in love with his leading lady, Kristina. It doesn’t help that her husband is a high ranking Nazi or that Clavel gets into a fight with several high ranking soldiers who leer at Kristina at dinner causing Rieti to have to call in favors to get Clavel out of jail.

The movie had a lot of sub-plots which made the overall film somewhat hard to follow. For instance, Kristina has a crazy stalker who happens to be an Italian noble (played by Niccolo Senni), she has a Nazi husband, conflicted feelings about the war, her worries about her career, and she has a budding romance with her drug addict co-star, and so on. Then we have Renzo who is sleeping with Rieti as well as another woman, is a fascist despite his bi-sexual leanings and trying to make it as an actor. Then there’s Clavel’s addiction and the fact he’s falling for his co-star and struggling to live within the restrictive regime of Italy. There is so much going on with each of the characters that we lose sight of the points the film is trying to make.

The setting is beautiful, but I found the music and the shots of actors performing on set (as part of the film within a film) were overly dramatic which almost made them laughable. Even though they went overboard on the drama in those parts, the rest of the movie was missing the tension that one would assume they would all be feeling knowing the country was about to go to war, and knowing their production could be shut down and some of them jailed even. At the very least, I would have expected Rieti to show more fear and nervousness knowing he had been publicly outed as both a Jew and a homosexual and could face jail time for either one. Plus, he had money issues and his movie could have been shut down at any time for a myriad of reasons. Yet he seems sad, but not tense. Also, we know he is involved with Renzo, but we don’t really see any longing or attraction between them and he blows off the fact Renzo has a female lover as well. The only person who shows any real tension and lets you know of the dangers that lurk is the Hungarian director, Lazlo (Andras Balint).

Overall, this movie had a lot of potential and some great performances by Balint and Clavel. It fell short with the many subplots and the fact I didn’t get the sense of urgency I felt these people would have if they were really in this situation—about to be shut down and on the brink of a major world war. Still, the setting is beautiful and The Moon and the Stars is interesting viewing for anyone who is a history buff.

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