I would say that Italian Studies perpetuates the stereotype that weed-smokers are dumb (I won’t say it, though, because I don’t think it’s a stereotype at all). There is a character in this movie who has “a hiding place for my weed, because my mom searches my room.”
The hiding place is a book in a public library. Really. It’s like Poe’s “Purloined Letter” if Poe was a complete idiot. This is so stupid Cheech and Chong would scratch their heads in disbelief. The movie actually seems to believe that this is indeed a pretty good spot to stash your weed, so I guess writer/director Adam Leon must have been pretty high himself when he thought of it.
The film proper deals with Alina Reynolds (Vanessa Kirby), a writer who spontaneously loses her memory one day; the movie follows Alina as she wanders aimlessly through the streets — although it would be more accurate to say that both she and the film are equally directionless — and uses her amnesia as a license to be a b---- on wheels.
(if you guys suddenly didn’t remember who you are or where you live, would your first instinct be to seek a hospital or police station, or in general to ask for help relevant to the circumstances? Or would you immediately turn to begging and stealing?). She keeps insisting that she “lost” her dog, when in reality she abandoned it (sure, she might have forgotten it, but then why would she remember having a dog at all?).
Thanks to a fan, Alina discovers that she is the author of a collection of short stories also called Italian Studies, so she goes to another library — or maybe it’s the same one; who cares? — and, after reading a copy of her own book, she autographs it — even though, as a reader at the same table reasonably points out, she may have written it, but the book belongs to the library, so basically she’s defacing public property.
Anyway, to make a dumb story short, since her stories revolve around “mostly young people”, Alina decides that she is going to write a novel about teenagers, and “So, what I need is to spend time with some teenagers”. Judging by the teenagers she spends time with — including the aforementioned bookworm junkie — Alina’s new book is going to be just as half-baked as this movie.
