21/10/2022 - Gianni Di Gregorio’s movie is a brilliant comedy casting a tender and disenchanted eye over the loves, ailments and infinite annoyances of the third age

After Citizens of the World [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], the character of the “Professor” played by Gianni Di Gregorio is making his return in Never Too Late for Love [+see also:
trailer
film profile], the fifth feature film by the Roman actor-director, which was presented within the Grand Public section of Rome Film Fest. Now in his seventies, from one day to the next the man finds himself having to leave the home he’s rented for his entire life to seek out new accommodation. Realising that he can’t afford rent on a new home in the capital, he contacts his ex-wife (Agnese Nano) and asks her to specify which part of the old house in Artena still belongs to him.

Astolfo’s arrival in the town doesn’t go down too well. He soon discovers that the son of an acquaintance (Alberto Testone) has been squatting in his house for “six, seven, eight years” and that the local pastor is still acquiring space illegally within the property, which is now damp and rundown. Astolfo appears to take his abusive lodger’s fate to heart, and they slowly come to form a very strange company of friends composed of the two of them, a penniless youth, an elderly cook with a mysterious past and old cousin Carlo, a chatty womaniser who’s eager to “fix up” Astolfo with a new flame, played by Stefania Sandrelli.

Fortunately, Sandrelli is rather effective in the role of a grandma devoted to her grandchildren (often with her head in the clouds) who wants to relive her youth and forge new ties. Astolfo is a complex and well characterised figure: belonging to an impoverished noble family with a glorious past, but fully aware of his own everyday miseries, he’s an educated, ingenious, ironic and occasionally melancholic man.

Overall, Gianni Di Gregorio has churned out a brilliant comedy with no shortage of hilarious scenes, occasioned by clashes with the irritating pastor and the arrogant mayor (Simone Colombari), not to mention Astolfo’s misadventures with his strange company of friends. There’s also plenty of surreal humour, whether ovens emitting two-metre-high flames, anecdotes about bears on the run, or embarrassing romantic encounters.

Tenderness and candour are plentiful too. By way of Astolfo, Di Gregorio demonstrates how the third age isn’t so different from childhood. These two protagonists take us back to being children, and a fleeting look, an embarrassed silence, or an unexpected thirty-two-toothed smile turn into moments of shared joy and easily foster empathy between the audience and these characters.

In sum, the film doesn’t offer up anything particularly novel, but everything is made with measure, and it’s involving and entertaining. The end result feels a bit rushed, and it doesn’t tie up all the loose narrative ends as well as it could, however this is a relatively forgivable flaw, considering the overall elegance of the endeavour.

Never Too Late for Love is an Italian-French production by BiBi Film, Le Pacte and RAI Cinema, whose international sales are steered by French firm Le Pacte.

(Translated from Italian)