I haven't seen the movie, but it looks like the boy is the protagonist and Malena just the object of his desire?
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Last movie watched: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (8/10)
We see her through his eyes throughout, but as he snuggles himself closer, her characters occasionally comes alive - albeit momentarily - and we get a close look at her character and predicament. To me, she is more than just the object of his desire, especially since the boy gets to witness certain developments he doesn't fully understand. On the other hand, her character feels limited by this rhetorical device and never truly comes alive because of it. Whether that makes her a secondary character, I don't know, but she's certainly not the lead.
I just want to say that the dramatic point-of-view seemed like a misjudgment to me and that it would've been far more interesting to see her world crumble from inside. Monica Bellucci gives a genuinely moving, self-loathing performance of contained despair but she's always at a distance - and not an altogether compelling distance either. It just felt like Tornatore on autopilot to me, doing something he'd done before... and to greater effect.
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