Bread and Tulips

Silvio Soldino directs this gentle comedy about a housewife who temporarily flees from the grinding tedium of her household duties and drifts into a world of amicable weirdos. When Rosalba (Licia Maglietta) is accidentally forgotten by her tour bus at a roadside restaurant, she does not wait there as instructed. She decides to hitchhike home, but on a whim, she ends up in Venice instead. Quietly exhilarated at the prospect of being alone for a spell, she checks into an inn run by a kindly Icelander (Bruno Ganz) who is plotting his own suicide. Her plans to return the next day are thwarted when she misses her train and does not have enough money to buy another ticket. Soon she is gainfully employed at a flower shop run by an irascible old anarchist. Though her teenaged sons do not seem all that bothered by their mom's absence, Rosalba's husband grows increasing agitated at the interruption in his routine, so he hires a bumbling detective to track her down. — Jonathan Crow