The illusionary affections, the familial too sometimes. It’s the theme of the movie I saw lately and frankly didn’t hit me neither for its profundity, nor for script, direction, how the story and characters were artistically rendered, not even for the humour because the lines often sounded banal and the acting was kept on the surface.. rather than digged: this last thing is maybe due to a need of alignment with the main actor’s way of acting, given the fact he, Diego Abatantuono, seems to have been working like this for already a long time and that no one in the cast can ‘happen’ to be better than him. Nevertheless, when I think of him in the movie ‘Mediterraneo’ (*), well that was then. And the director counts so much, I believe even more than the actors: if there’s an excellent cast of actors and a director who doens’t work well or is not at their level the movie that comes out will probably be worse than a film with averagely good actors lead by a Master as a filmmaker. But, going back to Abatantuono and to his latest movie, where he plays the leading role together with young Antonio Folletto, who’s particularly known for the ‘Gomorra tv’ series and interprets here an ironic killer with a secret that will be revealed toward the end of the film and will make his character more ‘human’, the theme is really interesting: are we so sure to be surrounded by many friends? are we sure we can give for granted some affections just because they belong to the family area? are we sure we don’t have any enemies who are disguised as people professing an interest and misrepresenting their feelings for us? Unluckily, sometimes we are lonelier than we think and would admit. Actually, this week theme could or should have been this one – the solitude, but the loneliness within the movie is more specific and serious than a generic sense of isolation due to the social incomprehension or any school mistreatment as children or an injustice at work, etc. Right our, origin or new, family, our safe haven, could be for us trouble and and unimaginable delusions. The lead of AN ENNEMY WHO LOVES YOU is betrayed and exploited by both his origin family (his mother and brother) and his new one (his wife and sons). An apparently ruthless killer only will be (enough) honest with him and will flank him wishing not to lose him ever: they’ll end up friends. As they say, you choose your friends, not your parents. Thus the film subject matter and the comic fodder are appealing, though I’d wait for the tv, I wouldn’t go to the movies. Finally, talking of the people around you… watch your self!
(*) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterraneo
(Italian) trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e5Q_T-JrOU
