Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 21/2/2019)

Also on view are Valerio Mieli's Ricordi?, which chronicles the convoluted romance between Luca Marinelli and Linda Caridi; Paolo Zucca's slapstick comedy, The Man Who Bought the Moon, which stars Jacopo Cullin as an exiled Sardinian returning home to discover the truth about a bizarre real estate deal; and Letizia Lamartire's debut, We'll Be Young or Beautiful, which teams Barbora Bobulova as a singer struggling to recapture past glories and her songwriting son, Alessandro Piavani. And there's also a tribute to the late Bernardo Berlucsconi with a screening of his atmospheric 1970 adaptation of novelist Alberto Moravia's Fascist study, The Conformist. 

EUPHORIA.
Second features often prove difficult. Following her promising study of assisted suicide in Miele (2013), respected actress Valeria Golina takes a sizeable step backwards with this soap operatic saga that invests so heavily in narrative contrivance that it's difficult to take its insights into sibling bonding, terminal illness and homosexual hedonism seriously. Raking in the cash as a dubious entrepreneur whose clients include the Vatican, Matteo (Riccardo Scamarcio) lives in the lap of luxury with Luca (Andrea Germani), a companion he jokily refers to as his `lady in waiting'. However, life is not so sweet for his older brother, Ettore (Valerio Mastandrea), a teacher who has remained in their hometown and is racked with guilt because his affair with workmate Elena (Jasmine Trinca) has destroyed his marriage to Michela (Isabella Ferrari). So, when the doctor informs Matteo that Ettore is suffering from an inoperable brain tumour, he decides to withhold the gravity of the diagnosis from his sibling and their mother (Marzia Ubaldi), and invites Ettore to move into his apartment while he undergoes treatment. 

Quite why Golina and co-writers Francesca Marciano and Valia Santella believed that audiences would unquestioningly accept such mawkishly manipulative melodrama is anybody's guess. But, despite the preposterous nature of the storyline, this is played with admirable commitment by the solid ensemble supporting Riccardo Scamarcio and Valerio Mastandrea. The former's substance-fuelled gay lifestyle is patronisingly clichéd, right down to him confiding his woes to the loyal and lonely Tatiana (Valentina Cervi). Yet, even though his muddled attempt to protect his brother never convinces for a second, their rapport during a pilgrimage to the Marian shrine at Medjugorje in Bosnia is unexpectedly poignant. Moreover, cinematographer Gergely Pohárnok makes poised use of the Roman locations and Luca Merlini's chic interiors, while Giogio Franchini's editing is razor sharp. For all her confidence in calling the shots, however, Golina is ultimately stymied by the deeply flawed scenario.

THE GUEST.
Having explored teenage sexuality in his debut feature, Short Skin (2014), sophomore Duccio Chiarini turns his attention to the problems facing Italy's Credit Crunch generation in this well-observed, if unpersuasively resolved dramedy. Cast adrift after girlfriend Chiara (Silvia D'Amico) informs him that she not only doesn't want his child, but is also planning to emigrate to Canada without him, thirtysomething Guido (Daniele Parisi) finds himself having to cadge a bed from pals Pietro (Guglielmo Favila) and Lucia (Anna Bellato) and Dario (Daniele Natali) and Roberta (Thony) after he outstays his welcome with his parents (Sergio Pierattini and Milvia Marigliano). Despite hoping to land a grant to complete his book on Italo Calvino, Guido is reliant on stints of substitute teaching. But he faces a struggle to cope when his father's illness forces him to confront the fact that life is passing him by and his chances of achieving anything on an intellectual and personal level are receding at a frightening speed. 

Shifting into melancholic melodrama from the broad comedy of the opening sequence involving a ruptured condom, this study of a rootless generation with a disposable attitude to work, possessions and relationships makes a number of pertinent socio-political points. But the surfeit of subplots clutters the action, as Guido discovers that he can only really rely on his nearest and dearest. Daniele Parisi makes a genial anti-hero, although his decision to stalk the surprisingly tolerant Silvia D'Amico is a little creepy. Indeed, Chiarini and co-scenarists Roan Johnson, Davide Lantieri and Marco Pettenello skirt an in-depth discussion of the crisis of Italian masculinity and rather push their luck with an overly cosy conclusion. Nevertheless, production designer Laura Boni and cinematographer Baris Özbiçer help Chiarini make some astute observations on age, class and the post-millennial reluctance to commit. 

LUCIA'S GRACE.
Experienced writer-director Gianni Zanasi comes a cropper with this smug swipe at Roman Catholicism, which employs lazy satire on the status of women in Italian society and the endemic incidence of corruption to get what can only be described as rictus laughs. Land surveyor Lucia (Alba Rohrwacher) is having a tough time with her estranged electrician partner, Arturo (Elio Germano), and their increasingly rebellious teenage daughter. Rosa (Rosa Vannucci). So, she feels under pressure to grant businessman Paolo (Giuseppe Battiston) permission to embark upon a building project that has been designed by smarmy architect Serra (Thomas Trabacchi). But, when Lucia and assistant Fabio (Daniele De Angelis) recce the hilly landscape, they discover that it has been inaccurately mapped. Moreover, Lucia is approached by an ethereal figure who identifies herself as the Virgin Mary (Hadas Yaron), who orders her to erect a church on the land to commemorate her vision. 

With Lucia being the only person to see the Madonna and their exchanges becoming serenely boisterous, this had the potential to offer witty insights into the state of contemporary religious observance, the media response to the visitation and the ecological ramifications of putting a church in the middle of an area of outstanding natural beauty. But Zanasi and his fellow writers settle for a hotchpotch of limp analysis, cornball shtick and shoddy mockery (particularly of the pilgrims who come to the spot after Lucia's heroin-addicted father spills the beans) that is compounded by the dullness of the subplots. Compensation comes in the form of the ever-watchable Alba Rohrwacher and cinematographer Vladan Radovic's views of Viterbo and the Lazio countryside. But, with its patronising tone and thuddingly unfunny gags, this overlong ordeal can only be dismissed as trite, tactless and tiresome.

MAGICAL NIGHTS.
In 1994, Paolo Virzi won the Donatello for Best New Director for Living It Up and he returns to this period in his 14th feature, which he seemingly concocted during Ettore Scola's funeral. During the host nation's dramatic penalty shootout loss to Argentina at Italia 90, the black limousine carrying film producer Leandro Saponaro (Giancarlo Giannini) plunges off a Roman bridge into the River Tiber. However, the autopsy reveals that Saponaro was dead before he hit the water and the police captain on the case (Paolo Sassanelli) is informed by the victim's ditzy mistress, Giusy Fusacchia (Marina Rocco), that she considers a trio of aspiring screenwriters of being the prime suspects. Having met at a prize-giving ceremony, bookish Sicilian Antonino Scordia (Mauro Lamantia), Tuscan lothario Luciano Ambrogi (Giovanni Toscano) and neurotic Roman princess Eugenia Malaspina (Irene Vetere) have been inseparable. But flashbacks divulge that their adventures in the screen trade didn't always turn around la dolce vita.

Flinted with references to Italian cinema and society in the early 1990s, this is a nostalgic's delight, as Antonio is duped out of his 25 million lira bursary by the scheming producers of Federico Fellini's The Voice of the Moon. Elsewhere, Marcello Mastroianni is glimpsed mooning over his break-up with Catherine Deneuve, while Luciano and Eugenia have contrasting encounters with a fading diva (Ornella Muti) and a chauvinist French superstar (Jalil Lespert). But, while Virzi and co-scenarists Francesco Piccolo and Francesca Archibugi delight in evoking the seedy yesteryear grandeur that is impeccably reinforced by production designer Alessandro Vannucci and cinematographer Vladan Radovic, they also keep the audience guessing about the whodunit, even though it remains something of a giallo MacGuffin. The performances are also spot on and, consequently, this represents a welcome return to form after Virzi's misfiring English-language debut, The Leisure Seeker (2017).

WHEREVER YOU ARE.
British audiences didn't get the chance to see either of Bonifacio Angius's first two features, SaGràscia (2011) and Perfidia (2014). However, they will be keen to track them down after watching this engaging road movie that apparently takes its inspiration from Miloš Forman's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and John G. Avildsen's Rocky (1976). Fiftysomething Sardinian lounge singer Alessandro (Alessandro Gazale) winds up in a clinic after his mother (Teresa Soro) calls the police when he gets returns roaring drunk and ransacks the house in search of some money to buy drugs and play the slot machines. Having calmed down, Alessandro is touched by the plight of Francesca (Francesca Niedda), a single mother with mental health issues whose five year-old son, Antonio (Antonio Angius), has been taken into care. Recognising an opportunity to emulate the father he had adored, Alessandro offers to accompany Francesca to Cagliari to rescue her child and then join them on an expedition to Barcelona. But, as they forge a bond during their progress across the island, it becomes clear that they are not alone.

Hailing from Sassari, Angius is clearly keen to present his homeland in all its glory. But he is ably abetted by the outsider eye of Catalan cinematographer Pau Castejón, who not only captures the rugged beauty of the Sardinian setting, but also the island's amazing light. He also keeps close to Alessandro Gazale and Francesca Niedda to reinforce the sense of intimacy that makes this odd couple odyssey so endearing. In truth, besides being abandoned by all and sundry, they have little in common, with his woes being largely self-inflicted and hers being the result of her own fragility. But they have an unforced chemistry that keeps the audience rooting for them, especially after they locate her child, who is played with cherubic insouciance by the director's young son.