30/03/2022 - Salvatore Allocca’s dramedy about the world of youth football treats us to a few wonderful moments but is underpinned by an uplifting story which refuses to break with historic TV fiction codes

Francesco Colella and Alessio Parinelli in Mancino naturale

“Failure” is the key word when it comes to Mancino naturale [+see also:
trailer
film profile], a dramedy directed by Salvatore Allocca and set to tour Italian cinemas after a stint within Rome Film Fest’s Alice nella Città section last year. “You have to get away from this world of losers” insists Isabella, the mother of our twelve-year-old protagonist Paolo (newcomer Alessio Perinelli), in reference to the not entirely residential neighbourhood where they live in Latina. Indeed, “loser” is the insult the boy hurls at his neighbour who’s trying to coax him out of his shell. The neighbour is a screenwriter, and he bears the full weight of the self-referential humour meted out by the film’s script writers Emiliano Corapi, Massimo De Angelis, Simone Lenzi and Allocca himself, as they allude to a profession set aside for dreamers.

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Paolo is endowed with the lethal left-footedness referred to in the film’s title and the only thing which embarrasses him on the pitch is his mum arguing with the other young footballers’ parents on the side-lines. Played by one of Italy’s best loved actresses Claudia Gerini (Sulla giostra [+see also:
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film profile]) has “swindler” written all over his face, and Isabella is the only one not to see this. He offers her son a match attended by important Serie A scouts, but she’ll need to fork out 6,000 euros for him to take part and to grease the palms of various recruiters. Like a compulsive gambler, she’ll do anything to find that money, leading the viewer to decide Isabella is a fairly unscrupulous woman and a terrible mother. Claudia Gerini, however, knows how to go about injecting tenderness into the character of this young widow who’s in search of social redemption.

Set to breach this tight mother-son magic/toxic circle is neighbour/TV series screenwriter Fabrizio (the brilliant and ever comical Francesco Colella, 3/19 [+see also:
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film profile]), who is given the task of looking after the boy while his mother goes looking for money. Fabrizio treats Paolo to a few home truths (“the worst thing is stealing someone else’s idea”) and instils in him a love of studying (establishing a link with The Champion by Leonardo D’Agostini) and reading. In fact, the film’s best moments come out of their developing bond. But Mancino naturale subsequently enters into the grey zone of films made for TV audiences (and there’s a self-indulgent gag about this in the film), relocating the action to Vicenza without ever giving us a true sense of the region in which the story is set, and spiralling into an edifying story aimed at families in search of fictional parables which refuse to break with established codes or to attempt new styles and languages.

Mancino naturale is an Italian-French co-production by Emma Film and Promenades Films, made in collaboration with RAI Cinema and with the support of the Italian Ministry for Culture, the CNC, Lazio Innova and the Veneto Region. The film hits Italian cinemas on 31 March courtesy of Adler Entertainment.

(Translated from Italian)