Title: Il nome del figlio (The name of the son)
Director: Francesca Archibugi
Starring: Alessandro Gassman, Valeria Golino, Luigi Lo Cascio, Rocco Papaleo, Michaela Ramazzotti.
Based on the French movie ‘Le Prénom’ (What’s in a name) which adapted for the screen the same title play, ‘Il nome del figlio’ (The name of the son) uses the same mockery of a controversial name, to unleash a series of revelations during a supposedly tranquil dinner amongst friends.
Paolo (Alessandro Gassman) is an outgoing and playful real estate broker married to Simona (Michaela Ramazzotti), a beautiful woman from the outskirts of Rome who has become an author of spicy bestsellers and is pregnant of their child. Betta (Valeria Golino), Paolo’s sister is a teacher and lives with her two children and her husband Sandro (Luigi Lo Cascio), who is a cultured university professor obsessed with twitter. They organise a dinner at their place, where they invite Paolo and Simona, as well as their childhood friend, the eccentric musician Claudio (Rocco Papaleo). During the lively dinner Paolo reveals how he would like to name his son, the reactions will steam up the evening.
These quirky characters are enticing and empathic. They magnify a generation and they represent them all. They would avidly like to turn back time. They struggle to accept the world has changed and are nostalgic about their carefree wealthy childhood. They are liberals who have become conservatives. Freethinkers who live as bourgeois. They are sweetly mocked, because they are us. We are all ridiculous and thusly become farce.
Director Francesca Archimbugi sets this irresistible mise en scène in a beautiful house: an unconventional library-grotto home that welds the past of an important dynasty with the hippie heart of the descendants inhabiting it.
This stage allows the characters to move around projecting the psychological dynamics that affect us all, as time goes by, epitomised by the beautiful song included in the score ‘Telefonami tra vent’anni’ (Call me in twenty years) by the late Italian songwriter Lucio Dalla. Despite the story is a déjà-vu it comes across as fresh and surprising. It’s a warning for what lies ahead of our forgotten dreams and expectations, by setting a blinding light on the shadows we cast upon what we ignore because it may be disturbing.
Technical: A-
Acting: A-
Story: A+
Overall: A
Written by: Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi
