TOmbient in Puglia, Welcome back dad – on first tv on Rai 1 at 9.30 pm – treats with grace the theme of the disease and its consequences affecting a family and honest. Without ever slipping into rhetoric.
A story of love and friendship with the magnetic presence of Donatella Finocchiaro and the young and talented Riccardo Mandolini. And with Domenico Fortunato, also director of the film.
Welcome back dad: the plot of the movie
Franco (Domenico Fortunato), after an important job interview in Rome, returns to his home in Puglia where they await his wife Anna (Donatella Finocchiaro) and their teenage daughter Alessandra. With him there is Andrew (Riccardo Mandolini), the son who has lived in the capital for years and wants to make his way into the world of music.
But just when it arrives the confirmation of a prestigious assignment in a steel mill, Franco suffers a stroke while arranging the garden of the house.
The event upsets the family, that bury the contrasts to gather around him and help him in therapeutic path, a journey to be followed together with the love of the wife and children. Including his sensitive brother Silvano, and some lifelong known friends.
Suddenly and in the long run, a new balanceagain broken by another event.
A touching and measured drama
Set in Martina Francaat first glance Welcome back dad it may seem a parable of those seen a thousand times. Domenico Fortunato, however, manages to avoid all the traps of emotional blackmail, without ever giving in to sentimentality and easy tears.
With Franco’s stroke turned into narrative device for a total human evolution. Moving on from the precariousness in the generational clash between parents and children. Even with unexpected outcomes, such as the sudden maturation of the eldest child, who falls in love with a peer who looks after a parent right in the same hospital where the father is hospitalized.
What is missing is perhaps a coherence of the scripttoo unbalanced between long hospital scenes and very brief moments of introspection and intimacy. An aspect that makes history lose fluidity and the necessary emotional participation required of the viewer.
Not to mention an excessively mélo soundtrack which, in some passages, weakens the dramatic force of the shots.
The talent of Riccardo Mandolini
In addition to the class of Donatella Finocchiaroin the cast also stands out the presence of the young Roman actor born in 2000, famous for his role as Adriano in Baby. Son of the legendary actress Nadia RinaldiRiccardo is graduated from the Studio Cinema school, with teachers of the caliber of Michele Placido and Giancarlo Giannini. Then, in 2016, his debut in comedy In your place with Luca Argentero and Ambra Angiolini.
Face of a “bad” and marked Roman in cadence, Riccardo he doesn’t share much of his private life on social networks, over 700,000 followers, if not some selfies with mom Nadia. In a few months we will see him again at the cinema in the movie My by Ivano De Matteo, together with Edoardo Leo: story of a simple and happy family in which a young manipulator sneaks up which distorts the life of the little girl, turning it into a nightmare.
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