• Rating:
Having low expectations can be an advantage.
Sollima, the director of the TV series Romanzo Criminale and Gomorra, the movie Suburra, and now this Adagio, with the super-cast released in 2023 together with C’è ancora domani, and together they “settle down” on Netflix, where I just watched it yesterday.
Another film about the criminal capital? …with big-name actors as bait? Mastandrea, Favino, Servillo, and Adriano Giannini, son of Giancarlo. For this reason, I postponed watching it; I might have never watched it, it wasn’t on the list. I’ve read mixed opinions, well, let's give it a shot, after all, there’s almost never anything good on TV…
Manuel (Gianmarco Franchini) is 16 years old, he is the son of “Daytona” (Servillo), an old ex-criminal suffering from dementia… dad, you're out of your mind! … no no, I’m not… it comes and goes, your mother died six years ago… 7x8 56…
Manuel sneaks into a private party full of sex and coke, he has to make videos, photos with his cell phone because at this party there’s a politician dressed as a fairy getting it on with minors, offering them drugs.
Manuel didn’t want to go to this sleazy party but is forced, blackmailed by 3 corrupt policemen who will make good money with the photos and videos of the fairy-politician.
Something goes wrong, the policemen get pissed, Manuel is in danger. He seeks refuge with Paulniuman (Mastandrea) who redirects him to Cammello (Favino), old friends of his dad, back when they were a gang, when they were feared…
It's a dark and nocturnal Rome, with electric current failing, with fires in the distance, a deliberately surreal, end-of-the-world scenario. This time, no monuments, no Colosseum, there is no beauty neither great nor small, there is a degraded suburb, we are under the East Highway, Casilina, Pigneto, Prenestina.
Splendid night sequences, with the city shot from the terrace of Cammello, with the elevated highway under which cars constantly flow, dull incandescent ants.
A raw, brutal film, with an almost necessary violence and definitive, the only card to play to resolve things.
Favino, to say, never won me over, oh he’s good, he is, right? But it’s that kind of good where you go …mmh, yes, good, you never say wow amazing good oh! Well, this time he did it. Cammello is about sixty, he spent many years in jail, his son died, partly because of Daytona but also because of his own fault, really… he is devastated by grief, an annihilated man, finished, who doesn’t even have the right to sleep with his woman anymore, she sleeps in the bedroom, he on a camp bed in the kitchen. Completely bald, black tank top and worn jeans, fixed gaze lost in the void, he never laughs. Slightly stooped posture, typical of these old Roman scoundrels, worn out by time and “life” but always on the lookout, always ready to spring into action as if it were a reflex action. Cammello is the catalyst of the film, an extraordinary character, a major acting performance. Very good also Vasco (Giannini), he is one of the three policemen, the most resolute and violent. In Adagio there is no catharsis, no respite, no lightness or digression, the rhythm is constant and relentless, it will go as it must go.
It is a bitter film that stays with you and leaves you with a bit of dirt.
The worst thing isn’t that you prostituted yourself to buy these hi-tech headphones that cost a lot of money… the worst thing is that you listen to this shitty music with them…
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