Once more, With Feeling

ONCE MORE WITH FEELING
US Narrative Feature Films
U.S.A., 2008, 105 mins., color

The parallel life crises of a father and daughter take center stage in this engaging and endearing dramatic comedy by director Jeff Lipsky (Flannel Pajamas screened at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival).Frank Gregorio (Chazz Palminteri) is a successful psychiatrist, loving husband, and doting grandfather to the two children of his eldest daughter, Lana (Drea de Matteo). When the universe conspires to introduce him to karaoke through both a patient's parent issues and his precocious granddaughter's birthday party, Frank rediscovers a long-suppressed dream of becoming a professional singer. While his wife, Angelina (Maria Tucci), believes he's just practicing to sing at their younger daughter's upcoming wedding, Frank befriends a karaoke aficionado, Lydia (Linda Fiorentino), a femme fatale who has other plans for the would-be crooner. Simultaneously the sarcastic and harried Lana grows increasingly neurotic about her postpregnancy weight and flagging marriage and contemplates solutions in the form of plastic surgery and an affair with a hunky and charismatic police officer. Like father, like daughter? How will this close-knit Italian American family cope with the decisions Frank and Lana make?Brimming with wit, heart, and music, and featuring fine performances from its ensemble cast, Once More with Feeling perfectly captures the strength of family bonds in the face of life's temptations and trials.
CAST
Chazz Palminteri, Drea de Matteo, Linda Fiorentino, Lauren Bittner, Maria Tucci, Daisy Tahan, Gene Ruffini
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