In the French film Let's Rob the Bank, Louis de Funès is a small-time businessman convinced by his bank manager to invest all his savings in oil stocks in Tangana. When the stocks crash, Victor decides to recover the money he has lost and, together with his family, digs a tunnel that is supposed to lead them to the bank branch that ruined him. This was in 1964. Forty years later, things have changed for the worse, and the financial system of the global market has learned to destroy the lives of middle-class savers in even more refined and cautious ways. Tackling the very current issue of bank crashes caused by poor management at credit institutions big and small is Cento domeniche by Antonio Albanese. Here with his fifth directorial effort, Albanese is beloved as a comic actor (Grazie ragazzi [+lire aussi :
bande-annonce
fiche film] is the latest of his acting efforts), especially in the hilarious role of the corrupt and ignorant entrepreneur Cetto La Qualunque in the trilogy by Giulio Manfredonia. 

Cento domeniche begins like a lighthearted film, as is expected from a melancholy comedian such as Albanese, who also plays the main protagonist. Antonio is a former shipyard worker in a town in Lombardy overlooking a lake (the film was shot in Lecco and its surroundings). He plays bocce with his friends (Bebo Storti, Maurizio Donadoni, Martin Chishimba), has an ex-wife he gets on well with (Sandra Ceccarelli), and goes to bed with Adele (Sandra Toffolatti). He supplements his pension by continuing to work at the shipyard, he is the best bar-turner in the area, and his employer (Elio De Capitani) is almost like a brother to him, so much so that he’s given him a piece of land with a vegetable garden and chicken coop for free. When his beloved daughter Emilia (Liliana Bottone) tells him that she’s decided to marry Chicco, the son of a wealthy family that owns a clothing store and a villa with a swimming pool, Antonio wants to cover all the expenses of her lavish wedding. He goes to the bank to take out the substantial savings he’s accumulated during a life of hard work and discovers that his bonds have been converted into shares without his knowledge. He is offered a loan to be repaid with the margins of the shares and with this Antonio signs his sentence. The bank is in crisis and soon the accounts are blocked.

Albanese gradually pushes the film towards the social drama, while his relaxed expression transforms into a tragic mask. Lawyers, class actions, the pity of friends, the betrayal of his former boss, the anger, the insomnia, the support group, the alcohol, the phone turned off even for his daughter. The director marks all the steps of the spiral in which shareholders and investors fall, engaged in a labyrinth of contractual traps before bankruptcy, as we’ve seen happen all over the world, from Lehman Brothers to small, local credit institutions. With his character, however, Albanese intends to go deeply into the feeling of trampled dignity and the sense of impotence caused by “secondary victimisation,” and describes its dramatic consequences on interior dynamics, which provoke depression, suicide or a drive to commit irresponsible actions, as happens to the protagonist. He succeeds, and makes a small, well-calibrated film that denounces and makes universal one of the thorniest aspects of the "spirit of our time".

Cento domeniche was produced by Palomar and Leo, in collaboration with Vision Distribution, Prime Video and Sky. The release in Italian cinemas is set for 23 November via Vision Distribution.