Pupi Avati
La cena per farli conoscere

Some films are such a huge bore that it's practically impossible to finish watching them.

This latest Avatata surpasses the strongest willpower. Reaching the end is a Herculean task and being curious about how the story might end is something for True Cinema Enthusiasts rather than normal people interested in a bland, watered-down story that's dull and insipid like few others.

The plot can be summarized quickly: Sandro Lanza (Diego Abatantuono) is an actor who suddenly finds himself in a rough artistic and personal patch. Now sixty, he has lost his hair and his physique is not what it once was. A failed cosmetic surgery leaves him even more demoralized, and around Christmas, he stages a fake suicide attempt that almost kills him for real. Admitted to the hospital, he is visited by his three daughters, born from three different women and living in various parts of Europe. Once reunited, the three sisters decide to do something to improve their father's situation: they organize a dinner to introduce him to a woman, intelligent, independent, enterprising, who can finally turn his life around.

Just this would be enough to make the entire audience burst into a thunderous "ESTICAZZI!" Any decent producer should have rejected such a script, but PUPI PREZZEMOLO AVATI didn't. Pupi, who has his Saints in heaven, evidently knows how to make things work and always knows how to come out on top.

This "La cena per farli conoscere" is a pretentious analysis of challenging family relationships that leads nowhere, gradually dissipates, and becomes flabby and insipid material, devoid of interest and as boring as never before. Everything remains too sketchily touched in a comedy turning into melodrama without sparking any particular feelings, possibly also due to the decidedly too cold settings and acting, with dialogues always over the top.

But it is the story that is missing everywhere. Where have the Authors of Italian Cinema gone? When will we see movies with original IDEAS and not bland sentimental messes, set in SAD places, acted in a SAD manner with stories that calling SAD would almost be a compliment... When, I ask you... W H E N?!

A project that could have led to much different results instead of this para-television movie with too many technical and stylistic imperfections that generate a precarious sense of satisfaction and a boredom I've rarely experienced in a single film. It can be acknowledged that the intent was not to generate thrilling emotions (somewhat like Antonioni in the good old days), but gloomy defeatism... yes, whatever you want, but the unhappiness emanating from the characters and their dialogues comes across as quite clumsy (Francesca Neri, for instance, although credible in her defiant alcohol-influenced ways, appears as an overall forced caricature not entirely successful). The usual Diego is the saving grace, a true showman, who with his verve fits "like a glove" in the role of an actor on the decline (although he's been playing the same role for the past 20 years!) while a veil of pity should be thrown over the other practically nonexistent actors.
A misstep by Pupone Avati, this "La cena per farli conoscere" will never become THE film to remember over the years. That much is certain!