Angela

Story Line: Angela (Donatella Finocchiaro) and her older husband, Saro (Mario Pupella), run a shoe shop in Palermo that operates as a front for their successful drug business. Things start to go downhill personally and professionally when Angela gets involved with Masino (Andrea di Stefano), Saro's new young handsome employee.

Bottom Line: Angela, which director Torre says began life as a documentary about a Mafia wife in Palermo, ended up as a fictionalized true-life story that plays mostly like a made-for-Lifetime cable movie. But that isn't to say it's not a refreshing change from movies about the Mob, which mostly exist from the male point of view. Here, viewers see the males only through Angela's eyes, and though she often gets a door shut in her face (a la Diane Keaton in The Godfather), she is still an integral part of her husband's business—but it's a small part, and Angela slowly grows frustrated with her life. This is a meaty role that the striking Italian actress Finocchiaro handles beautifully, by turns sexy yet also damaged. The many close-ups and dark, gritty feel of the film really capture this small-time Mob operation and the run-down urban streets of Sicily in the '80s. Women viewers interested in Mob stories but who abhor violence will find much to enjoy here.