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Rating:
It passed almost unnoticed in Italian cinemas, with little advertising promotion, quickly avoided by those who consider modern Italian comedy as the umpteenth Egyptian plague, and overshadowed by superior productions released during the same period. A real pity, because Lucini's film is certainly a good product in its reference genre.
The film, loosely based on the amusing urban and romantic survival guidebook of the same title, is a light-hearted and if you will, somewhat cynical analysis of seven ordinary lives, in each of which anyone could surely recognize themselves in their daily attitudes.
There's the fifty-something who refuses to give up his Peter Pan persona, the young man involved in a suffocating and rushed marriage, the ambitious and cynical businessman, those who cling to a forced rationality not to expose their many weaknesses, and as always, there's someone who waits for tomorrow to be another day, hoping their dreams won't remain forever locked in a drawer for which, due to life's occasional mediocrity, we've all somewhat lost the key.
Seven lives, as I said, seemingly very different, yet connected by a common denominator, the five-a-side football in its primitive sense, the football field as a metaphorical place where everyone is equal, where one can kick away their problems, where for those few minutes one can enjoy genuine and true relationships, and probably, a more carefree life.
This is precisely the film's leitmotif: five-a-side football not only as a team sport but as a metaphor for life, unfolding inexorably through dribbles, saves, desperate runs in pursuit of the winning move. This interesting parallel is well highlighted in the film, where the scenes on the field and those from everyday life blend and intersperse in never forced, often complementary balance; as the protagonists' stories resolve or tangle, the team play also changes, not always for the better, proving that the perfect dribble past what hinders us is pure utopia, in our daily life as much as on a synthetic field.
The main flaw of the film, which surely isn't without imperfections, is summed up in the television-style approach with which it's set up: certainly hindered by frequently changing narrative plots, Lucini balances the complexity of the storyline with a direction perhaps too straightforward, almost like a sitcom, a choice that inevitably flattens everything, leaving little room for directorial extravagances, accurate shots, and techniques that would have surely added something extra to the overall work. The cast is both the film’s strength and weakness: on one hand, you have remarkable actors like Giuseppe Battiston (whom I personally adore, considering him in the top ten of the actors Italy currently has) and Angela Finocchiaro (who provides an hilarious andrological visit to Bisio, always caught between a sweet, maternal woman and her irreverent cynicism) and, why not, the versatile Claudio Bisio; on the other hand, the cast includes actors (Pietro Sermonti, the "ex-Ris" Filippo Nigro, Claudia Pandolfi, Andrea de Rosa) who inevitably remind us of local TV series; an element that also afflicted the director's previous film ("The Perfect Man", amusing but terrible when compared to this). A bit underwhelming is Max Mazzotta, who here expresses his potential to the fullest (his portrayal of Fiabeschi in De Maria's "Paz" is far superior).
In conclusion, "Amore, Bugie e Calcetto" is a very good bittersweet comedy, relaxing and entertaining without being banal, yet capable of sowing a few reflections here and there, offering the viewer an interesting depiction of human relationships in modern society, where five-a-side football serves as an alternative interpretive key.
Forget the Lucini of "3 Metri sopra il cielo" and you will be able to appreciate this title which, far from asserting itself as a masterpiece, represents a real breath of fresh air in Italian comedy, which fortunately doesn't always give us only holiday films and crisis management manuals for young girls.
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