The buzz of new things

Italian cinema operates in a closed circuit, always featuring the same actors and even the same directors. It is impossible to deny; one need only look at the posters. Here, director Paolo Genovese has written the novel on which the film is based – published by Einaudi in 2023 – all by himself, without leaving even a glimmer of fresh air. The classic ensemble cast of Italian cinema is transported to Milan, but naturally everyone retains their own accent. But why Milan? Could it be because of the sprawling, grey and rainy city where people brush past one another without looking? The ones who look at each other the least are the couples, quarrelsome like the nurse Emanuela Fanelli and Edoardo Pesce, a factory worker and part-time children’s clown (the only actor in Italian cinema who accepts unpleasant roles – they all fall to him). They are the ones worst off financially, but as usual, nothing gives this away, save for the words that ceaselessly recount what isn’t shown. Another couple is weighed down by a painful secret: Vittoria Puccini and Stefano Accorsi, who for the occasion has regained a flowing mane of hair that he perhaps didn’t even have back in the days of the Maxibon. She donated a kidney to him; they’re unhappy because they don’t have a child of their own. The third couple comprises Lino Musella and Claudia Pandolfi; he is a sound effects artist (like a character from Storie parallele, the film by Asghar Farhadi due for release on 26 November), while she has a past as an actress. The transition from one story to the next appears random.