He was definitely one of them, and my character does a bit of a take on his hair. The confidence to think otherwise is unlocked by two people seeing the potential in each other, and Milwright’s unobtrusive natural-light photography elegantly bridges the film’s title, flitting between wide shots of Italian skylines and smokestacks and occasionally seguing into the blurry-edged dream sequences that litter the pic, nudging Marco toward self-forgiveness and a second lease of life.Well, there was Robert Plant. Borgobello and co-screenwriter Mario Mucciarelli’s fixation on vehicles - buses going in the wrong direction, trains only stopping once, cars colliding - foregrounds the sense of people on a path they’re convinced they can’t control. Perhaps this is because Marco can stand in for a generation of his countrymen, struggling to find meaningful work in straitened modern Italy. With a severe brown wig and fringe, Dermody is hardly recognizable here, and it’s interesting that while this is Borgobello’s story, it highlights the male standpoint. His spark leads to a romantic as well as professional awakening, with the lovers getting together while also contemplating a future spent working on opposite sides of the world, after Olivia chucks in her marketing job to pursue an interest in design. Incensed by the standard of canapes being handed out to tourists, he ties on an apron, shouting orders with a zeal worthy of Gordon Ramsay, and Parenti shows a flicker of life here that’s hitherto been thoroughly tamped-down. Olivia is unaware of Marco’s background as a chef until the two attend a garden party, catered for by one of his old cooking-school pals. The two go for a drink, and later for a drive to visit Olivia’s Italian grandmother, who is charmed by her granddaughter’s scruffily handsome companion. Later he sees the young Australian dragging furniture across the square below his apartment, and intervenes when a policeman pulls over to ask her what she’s doing. He can’t bring himself to attend the funeral, but begins managing his friend’s cherished bookshop, where he meets Olivia ( Dermody). Marco’s funk only deepens when Claudio is killed in a car accident. He’s content - or so he says - to stay and look after his elderly, monosyllabic father, who seems altogether more interested in watching television than in quality time with his boy. But he bats away any suggestion of returning to a professional kitchen, even at the invitation of ritzy Australian restaurant Di Stasio. And he occasionally cooks for dinner parties, encouraged by best friend Claudio (the appealing Lino Guanciale). ![]() He sleepwalks through shifts at the plant where his father used to work, seemingly with nothing to do but sit at a desk. ![]() Then it’s back to the real world, where the space between dreams and reality for the thirtysomething Marco, who was a hot-shot New York chef when his mother became ill and he returned home to Udine, is vast. Dermody looks back at him from the other side, then disappears. ![]() The film begins with an elliptical soft-focus sequence of Marco ( Parenti) wandering through woods to the edge of a lake, gazing across the water to the sounds of wind chimes and shimmery strings from composer Teho Teardo ( Il Divo).
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