Cas a gift for the new year, Alessandro Siani returns to the cinema with his seventh film as director: It happens even in the best families. Comedy set in Sicily starring the Neapolitan director-actor in the role of black sheep from a cutely dysfunctional family. A film which, in some ways, marks a change of pace in Siani’s comedy. Yesterday more fairytale, today more concrete.
It happens even in the best familiesthe plot of the movie
David Di Rienzo (Siani), is a 40-year-old medical graduate who works as a volunteer at Caritas. Black sheep of the family, leads an ordinary life in Naplesbetween one disappointment in love and another.
Everything changes when the hated father dies (Sebastiano Somma), a fact that allows him to return in the family villa – in Sicily – to be next to mother Lina (Anna Galiena) e to the brothers Renzo (Dino Abbrescia) and Isabella (Cristiana Capotondi). With whom though relationships are not easy at all due to the years of distance and various spites.
Much to everyone’s surprise, within a few days Lina announces her marriage to Angelo, (Antonio Catania) childhood sweetheart which he found by chance on the beach. The three brothers decide to see more clearly about this slightly bizarre man. But the closer the wedding gets, the more long-buried family secrets are discovered.
Siani’s cinema, finally mature and less fairytale-like
It happens even in the best families completes the metamorphosis of a director and comedian who felt the need to reinvent himself, looking abroad but without ever betraying his “Neapolitanness”.
A process that, abandoning the replication of classic patterns as in Miracles are acceptedand then continued with Through friendshipwhere Siani developed a new language untied from the fable-like tones of Pieraccioni.
«Everything has changed since 2013» says the actor-director in a press conference after the Roman preview of the film, «that is, since it came out The abusive princeand so we had to direct the comedy towards other pathswhich were new to me and turned out to be surprising.”
It happens even in the best families in fact it looks more like a British wedding comedy in style An English wedding. A necessary and undoubtedly successful step forward, also thanks to a cast of formidable actors.
Alessandro Siani, Cristiana Capotondi and Dino Abbrescia in a scene from “It happens even in the best families”. (01 Distribution)
The cast: Cristiana Capotondi, Anna Galiena and the other character actors
In the film they are mother and daughter. And they are a bubbly couple. Very different in character and lifestyle, mother Lina and second daughter Isabella (somewhat frustrated psychiatrist) represent i two poles around which the men of the Di Rienzo house revolve.
Cristiana Capotondi – fresh from the success of The ignorant fairies – The series – builds a character full of “dramatically” comic nuances. In an interview with RTL 102.5 he praised Siani for the ability to create «an emotional habitat that made us feel like a kind of traveling company, in which everyone provides their contribution».
Anna Galiena in a scene from “It happens even in the best families”. (01 Distribution)
For Anna Galienaafter decades of dramatic roles with the greatest authors of European cinema, from Bigas Luna to Peter Greenaway, Patrice Leconte It happens even in the best families it’s almost a debut in comedy.
Very happy to have worked with Sianihe confessed at the press meeting all his love for the comedy genre: «If I think about the authors I prefer, I can’t help but mention Howard Hawks but also many Italian authors. Alessandro’s film is a “total” comedy where, in addition to intrigue, action and laughter, feelings emerge».
As for the other actors in the film, there is the best of character actors. One for all Antonio Catania – made famous by the series Boris – in the role of Galiena’s hipster betrothed. And then Dino Abbresciawhich does the third brother of the Di Rienzo family insteada tacky lawyer with a forced wife (Euridice Axen) in tow.
The “controversy” in the press conference on political correctness
It cannot be said with certainty that Alessandro Siani was in the past the standard bearer of “foul-mouthed” and incorrect comedy. However, at the press conference to present the film he wanted to reflect on the current state of comedy. Not just Italian. In his opinion, she is too limited by the “dictatorship” of the politically correct.
«Before, the comedian was the person who could say everything that other people couldn’t say, he was irreverent, iconoclastic. Today, however, that is no longer the case.” Then making a distinction: «On social media, however, they say everything and the opposite of everything, but the comedian must stick to certain rules and it doesn’t always manage to create something overwhelming. It’s like telling a chef: “You must not put onion, garlic or oil in your dish.” Perhaps the last truly “free” comedy was The Hangover».
Location of the film: Sicily
It happens even in the best families it is the first film Alessandro Siani shot far from Naplesin Sicily.
Precisely in Milazzo. Famous for the proto-Byzantine necropolis and the beautiful Cathedral of S. Stefano. Some scenes of the film were also shot in the beautiful Cefalùa coastal city north of Palermo known for the Norman cathedral and the elaborate mosaics.
The main villa-location is Villa Paradiso Bonaccorsione of the most beautiful baronial residences in the province of Messina, located on the promontory of Capo Milazzo. A slender strip of land that overlooks the splendid Aeolian Islands. And in which, during the wedding at the center of the plot, all sorts of things will happen.
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