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Review: Ciao

A most gentle and civil gay film

By GERALD PEARY | December 16, 2008

2.5 Stars

VIDEO: The trailer for Ciao

The set-up in Yen Tan's most gentle and civil of gay films is that Dallas twentysomething Mark dies in a car accident just as his year-long Italian e-mail flirtation, Andrea (Alessandro Calza), is due to visit him from Genoa. Andrea comes to Dallas anyway, at the invitation of Mark's best friend, Jeff (Adam Neal Smith), who's also gay. The two young men, both of them mannerly and discreet, meet and talk through a day and night; the drama, of course, is whether this nice, rather ordinary pair will get together, and that's enough to keep an audience modestly intrigued.

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