It is a little gem of humor and self-irony that the famous Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti offers with his fourteenth feature film. On the way to a bright future.
In this delicious comedy, presented in competition at the Cannes Film Festival last May, Nanni Moretti plays Giovanni himself, a renowned Italian filmmaker preparing to shoot his new film about the history of the Communist Party in Italy.
Unfortunately, not everything is good in Giovanni’s life. His wife (the excellent Marguerita Buy) secretly consults a psychologist because she is thinking about leaving her, and his daughter moves away from him to spend more time with her new lover.
Things aren’t going well professionally either, because the start of shooting on Giovanni’s film doesn’t go as planned.
His French producer (the hilarious Mathieu Amalric) is on the verge of bankruptcy. His leading actress makes him so desperate that he wants to change her in the middle of filming. And his wife, who has worked alongside him as a screenwriter for years, leaves him to work on the set of a gangster film directed by a young, trendy filmmaker.
For the love of cinema
You will have understood: in this new film, Nanni Moretti takes great pleasure in parodying himself, slipping into the shoes of a disillusioned filmmaker, overwhelmed by his times, worried about the future of the 7th art. You have to watch this absolutely delicious scene where Giovanni is told by Netflix executives that there isn’t enough action in his film to quickly hook the viewer…
The director of His Son’s Room (Palme d’Or 2001) and Habemus Papam even allow themselves to flirt with musical comedy in some frankly delightful song and dance scenes.
Full of humor, nostalgia and tenderness, “Toward a Radiant Future” ultimately turns out to be a beautiful and impressive love letter to cinema.
Rating: 4 out of 5. Towards a Bright Future, a film by Nanni Moretti with Nanni Moretti, Marguerita Buy and Mathieu Amalric. On the screen.