In Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], presented as the closing film of Venice International Film Festival’s Giornate degli Autori, Gianni Di Gregorio takes on another character in his image and likeness: a seventy-year-old teacher who finally seems to have found peace. He has a beautiful home, a good pension and a few loyal friends with whom to share a regular glass of white wine at the local bar.

His fragile world is shaken, however, when his daughter (Greta Scarano) returns, having fled Heidelberg following a crisis in her marriage to a university lecturer played by Tom Wlaschiha. She’s accompanied by her two children (Anna Losano and Pietro Serpi), a cumbersome pair who end up upending the protagonist’s day to day life. Thus begins a story incorporating additional worries and anxieties, as well as unexpected emotions.

The poetic and melancholy notes which already characterised Di Gregorio’s films feel more accentuated in this movie, and even occasionally overbearing. The result is a feel-good dramedy which hits the mark on numerous occasions and where observation of everyday life goes hand in hand with a tender and illusion-free understanding of the human condition.

But the most obvious risk with this kind of operation is sliding into predictability. And, in the interests of full disclosure, certain moments in the movie do appear to be obvious choices for the director, such as the way the children behave, which is arguably more akin to children from twenty years earlier. But the authenticity of the film’s dialogue and the natural way in which the characters interact partly compensate for this heavy-handed approach. Di Gregorio’s art is capturing viewers in subtle moments, such as the protagonist allowing the grandson to pay for the car park with small change, wolfing down Sicilian fried food, dressing a salad or trying to write rambling essays on the Lombards.

Di Gregorio’s tried and tested approach feels tired compared to his previous works, including the recent movie Never Too Late For Love [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], especially when it comes to the pace in the second half. But, despite its flaws, the film ultimately delivers: it manages to entertain through a simplistic approach, relying on minimal, coherently employed elements — everyday locations, intimate and welcoming interior shots, light and measured camera movements, a straightforward and unintrusive score penned by Ratchev & Carratello, and the arrival of a new four-legged friend.

Di Gregorio’s movies have never claimed to reinvent film language, but his is a popular brand of cinema, in the most honest sense of the word: it’s accessible, understandable and capable of speaking to a wide audience without betraying its own identity. In a national landscape which is often full of gross, recycled or uncomfortable comedies, his approach remains recognisable and magnetic. Even this relatively minor work is characterised by the quiet humour which made Di Gregorio an auteur in his own right, sitting outside of the mainstream. With his delayed hesitancy and enthusiasm, the protagonist reflects the all too human condition of those who are searching for peace but who nonetheless intertwine their destiny with others’.

Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t is an Italian-French co-production by Bibi Film, RAU Cinema and Les Films du Poisson. World sales are managed by Fandango.