Having contributed shorts to Ward 3 (2012) and Mississippi Requiem (2019), UCLA graduate Marta Savina makes her feature bow with Primadonna: The Girl From Tomorrow. This builds on the action of the 2016 short, Viola, Franca, which was nominated for a David Di Donatello Award.
In 1965, 21 year-old Rosalia Crimi (Claudia Gusmano) lives in Sicily with her father, Pietro (Fabrizio Ferracane), her mother (Manuela Ventura), and younger brother, Mario (Francesco Giulio Cerilli). Life revolves around their smallholding and the local church, where Rosalia (who is known as Lia) had hoped to play the Virgin Mary in the Christmas festival. However, she is equally obsessed with Lorenzo Musicò (Dario Aita), the son of the town boss and sneaks away from a procession through the streets to flirt with him in the hills.
Aware her father wants nothing to do with the family, Lia only allows Lorenzo to kiss her on the cheek. But she is cross when he throws away a hair band she had bought herself and informs her that he doesn't like seeing her all dolled up. Storming off, she fails to keep a rendezvous the following day and glares at Lorenzo when he drives past in his car.
Pietro is worried that something will happen and orders Lia to stay home. But Lorenzo bursts in and kidnaps her and Pietro is distraught when the parish priest (Paolo Pierobon) advises against getting the police, as the couple has merely eloped. Having forced himself upon Lia, Lorenzo brings her to his father's house, where the priest and the local police captain witness the joining of the Musicò and Crimi families. However, Lia refuses to sign a document stating that the union is consensual and Lorenzo is arrested.
Musicò has a goat herd trample Pietro's crops in the night and the police urge him to keep Lia indoors. Orlando (Francesco Colella) declines the opportunity to represent Lia in court, but suggests she finds an outsider who is less intimidated by the Musicòs. The local prostitute, Ines (Thony), also offers to help Lia, as Lorenzo was a regular client and she is tired of being treated like dirt. After the priest bars them from attending the Good Friday service, Lia knows how she feels and turns down the big-city lawyer and asks Orlando to speak for her in court.
Lia is nervous on seeing so many people in the courtroom and recognises that the Musicò lawyer (Gaetano Aronica) is brash and sly. But she takes heart when her father stand up to him in the witness box, even when the judge allows speculative questions. She even manages to take the newspaper stories in good part. However, she feels humiliated when Lorenzo testifies that she had gone along with the `abduction' to mollify her father, as she wanted to marry against his wishes.
Reluctant to take the stand to avoid being judged by her neighbours, Lia becomes even more afraid when Musicò burns down Pietro's allotment shed. Ines comes forward, however, and agrees to testify that she overheard Lorenzo planning the raid during one of his visits. But she has a death threat delivered by the priest and Lia causes a scene in court when she tried to punch him.
Orlando arranges for Ines to go to Palermo, but admits the fracas in court damages their case. When someone throws a stone through Lia's window, they move in with Orlando. He pleads with Lia to give evidence, but she refuses because she doesn't see why she has to justify her decision not to marry a man she had come to detest. He suggests that she owes it to her family to speak her truth and she does so, in spite of the antics of the defence counsel.
The verdict goes their way and Lorenzo is sentenced to 11 years. But Pietro feels there is nothing to celebrate, as they have only won a pyrrhic victory because the Musicòs will make their life hell. He wants to move to Milan, but Lia insists on staying and the film ends with the family playing on the beach, as a caption reveals that the case led to a change in the law about matrimonio riparatore.
The ordeal of 17 year-old Franca Viola at the hands of Filippo Melodia in the Sicilian town of Alcamo was filmed by Damiano Damiani as La Moglie più bella/The Most Beautiful Wife. Fourteen year-old Ornella Muti made her screen debut as the wronged Francesca Cimarosa and looked far more vulnerable than thirtysomething Claudia Gusmano does in Marta Savina's otherwise worthy feature. Having already taken the title role in Franca, Viola, Gusmano ably conveys Lia's determination to bring her rapist to justice. But she seems too composed to convey her dread of public humiliation and, consequently, her courageous courtroom testimony seems to lose much of its dramatic impact.
Savina's screenplay also rather springs Orlando and Ines on the narrative, while saying little about the standing (or lack thereof) of the Crimis within the community or any friends Lia that might have seen while Lorenzo was away in Germany. More time might also have been spent establishing the grip that Gaetano Medicó has on the townsfolk, as well as the police and the Catholic Church. The role the priest plays in proceedings is shocking, but Savina avoids melodramatising scenes like the Good Friday debarring and the post-cockfight threat to Ines. Indeed, she largely adopts a Taviani-like strain of neo-realism that is reinforced by Francesco Amitrano's gritty views of the harsh landscape. Most significantly, she expertly exposes the plight of women in an insular patriarchal enclave and relates it to modern issues like the #MeToo and Time's Up movements.