Cinema: Pigstruck

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QUEEN OF HEARTS

Directed by Jon Amiel

Screenplay by Tony Grisoni

Hollywood wants to paint an anecdote on a $40 million canvas. The Brits, in their strapped-for-quid, post-David Lean days, toil to see how many angels can dance on the head of a penny. For perhaps a tenth of Black Rain's budget, Queen of Hearts lays out a beguiling panorama of romance and revenge, coming of age and coming to terms. Oh, and the niftiest talking pig since Porky.

In the cloistered Italian village of San Gimignano, bold Rosa (Anita Zagaria) is engaged to a town big shot but loves Danilo Lucca (Joseph Long). In a suicidal swoon, the lovers leap from the cathedral tower -- and land, in a flick of Tony Grisoni's supple narrative, in London's Italian quarter. Ten- year-old Eddie Lucca (Ian Hawkes) tells the story with a child's wily innocence as filtered through the memory of a wistful adult.

Jon Amiel has catered this sort of phantasmagoric feast before; he directed Dennis Potter's magnificent TV serial The Singing Detective. Once or twice % Amiel is hobbled by the conflicting demands of a sprawling vision and a thin wallet. The movie starts out of breath and keeps on running. But that's O.K.; in fact, for a couple of hours it's criminally enjoyable. Who would have thought that you could transport three roiling generations of Italians and get Moonstruck in Britain? R.C.