What a powerful tribute to maternal love and strength that young actor/filmmaker Jaret Martino has created with “Donna: Stronger than Pretty.” Martino, who plays a character based on himself, directed and co-wrote the film which spans early five decades in the life of Donna Moretti (Kate Amundsen). It opens with her 1960s Brooklyn childhood where the bookish girl dreams of college and career at a time when most working class girls were expected to look pretty and attract a husband.
Donna’s bickering parents divorce and Donna, who now has a toddler son, Angelo, moves with her Mom to Long Island. The film depicts the facade of suburban materialism masking bad marriages and hiding family dysfunction.
In the late 1970s Donna meets Nick Varga (Anthony Ficco), a handsome smooth talker who romances her. The courtship is a fairy tale; with lines like “It’s never too late to dream,” it would be pretty insufferable if we didn’t know it was about to turn into a nightmare. That’s indicated with Donna’s first visit to Nick’s Long Island family where she meets his sullen, hard drinking father (Steve Barkman) and doting, in-denial mother (Sandy Bainum).
Once the couple elopes and Donna gives birth to their son, Christian in 1986 — the grainy home video of his homecoming is a nice touch — Nick turns increasingly volatile and abusive. He starts a flooring business but spends most of his time dealing cocaine while hanging in the local bar. After daughter Brianne is born, the abuse escalates. The last straw for Donna is when Nick is jailed for drug possession. But her attempts to leave him are thwarted by his violence and her fears of how she’ll raise her three kids on her own. Donna draws on the support of a small network of women friends, headed by the no-nonsense Arleen, effectively portrayed by Brittany Molnar.
Despite some clunky staging and pacing, owing to an obviously bare bones budget, the film manages to honestly show the injustice of family courts and police who fail to treat domestic violence as a serious crime. Donna’s determination to make a life for herself and her kids, including working menial jobs and reclaiming her deferred dream of becoming a teacher, makes her story an inspiring one and the film a lovingly made valentine.
