PCan ten minutes a day change the course of a life? The answer is yes: that’s what happens to the protagonist of the film Ten minutes, at the cinema since yesterday. Directed by Maria Sole Tognazzitells the reconstruction journey of a forty-year-old, played by Barbara Ronchi, thanks to cognitive-behavioural therapy proposed by the psychologist Margherita Buy. The film is inspired by book by Chiara Gamberale For ten minutes.
Ten minutesthe plot of the movie
Bianca (Barbara Ronchi) is a journalist who, out of the blue, is fired from the newspaper where she worked and, what’s more, she is dumped after almost twenty years from her husband Niccolò (Alessandro Tedeschi). Unable to accept abandonment, attempts suicide.
After hospitalization, begins a therapeutic journey with doctor Giovanna Brabanti (Margherita Buy). The behavioral psychologist, severe and frank, he suggests she do something new every day for ten minutes.
Thus, Bianca experiences experiences she has never experienced before, leaving behind the self-centered dimension of her existence. For examplemeets Jasmine for the first time (Fotini Peluso), sister much younger than her that her father had by another woman.
On a path of reconstruction and rebirth, Bianca she will be able to find herself again and to mend the tears of his past life.
The novel by Chiara Gamberale
Freely based on the autobiographical bestseller of 2012 For ten minutesthe film scores the return of Maria Sole Tognazzi to the cinema nine years later I and she. In between, the successful series Petra, with Paola Cortellesi, on Sky. «Before starting to write the script I spoke to Chiara and asked her if I could feel free in the transposition» said the director.
A success with the public and critics, the novel tells how change is scary, but always necessary. And it shows how, one minute at a time, it is possible to live again. The book, the writer said at the press conference, «entered therapeutic pathways and the idea of the transposition immediately gave me joy and curiosity. The novel is more of a Nora Ephron comedy, but here the drama prevails».
Chiara Gamberale, said the director, «she was delighted that her novel was in our handshe wasn’t afraid of any kind, and he encouraged us to feel free».
Fotinì Peluso and Barbara Ronchi in a scene from “Ten minutes”. (Photo by Luisa Carcavale)
The differences between the film and the book
There are several differences in the plot of the book and the film. «Me and Francesca Archibugi (the co-writer) we worked very well together” said Tognazzi “We remained faithful to the text while maintaining the central ideabut then we had fun inventing new characters”. In Gamberale’s novel for example, there was no character of the protagonist’s sisterplayed by Fotinì Peluso.
The two screenwriters decided to include the character starting from an episode that actually happened in the Tognazzi household. Little Maria Sole, the director told Archibugi, didn’t know she had a brother: she discovered his existence when she was already an adult. When dad Ugo returned to Italy with a very blond child who came from Norway. And after a few days, he revealed to his children that it was their little brother, Thomas, whom he had with actress Margarete Robsahm.
A touching story about human frailty
Always interested in working with female psychologies, Maria Sole Tognazzi takes a step forward in her research. Through the interweaving of multiple temporal planes, flashbacks and ellipses, Ten minuteslike a puzzle, recomposes the fragments of an existence shattered.
Tognazzi, with very careful direction, remains glued to his protagonist to grasp all the nuances. A winning choice also because Barbara Ronchi, for the umpteenth time, turns out to be perhaps the best “new” outstanding actress.
Able to outline a sweet and complex personality with an acting made of details.
Margherita Buy and Barbara Ronchi in a scene from “Ten minutes”. (Photo by Luisa Carcavale)
Without the slightly too bourgeois patina that weighed down the director’s previous films, the film also has photography and the soundtrack among its strong points, skilfully serving the story.
Only weakness, a long flashback in the central part of the film which takes the breath away from the narrative. But between Ronchi’s interpretation and those of excellent supporting actors Margherita Buy and Fotinì Pelusothe result is a touching and measured film.
Margherita Buy in her third film with Maria Sole Tognazzi
The professional relationship between Margherita Buy and Maria Sole Tognazzi has been consolidated over time and from friendship. They first worked together in the 2013 film I travel alone.
The actress plays Irene, a single forty-year-old who works as an inspector in luxury hotels, and conquers a Donatello’s David.
Then, in 2015, it is co-star together with Sabrina Ferilli of I and she, sentimental comedy inspired by the film The vice and what he tells the crisis of a couple of homosexual women. Margherita in the film is the fragile Federica, in her first relationship with a woman in her life and unable to reveal it to her ex-husband and her son.
«From I travel aloneas soon as there is a suitable role I think of her», he told The messenger the director: “Here she is a psychiatrist, Dr. Braibanti, strong, self-confident, mysterious».
Barbara Ronchi and Alessandro Tedeschi: couple at the cinema and in life
If in Ten minutes his character dumps hers without too many compliments, in life the Ronchi-Tedeschi couple is more united than ever. The two actors are very secretive about their private lives they have been together for a long time and live in Rome.
From 2018 they have a son, Giovanni, which mother Barbara occasionally shows on her account Instagram.
Less known than his partner, Alessandro Tedeschi is Genoese (born 1980) and he was a theater actor and director for a long time. He then landed oncinema and TV with titles like The ruthlessgangster-comedy with Riccardo Scamarcio and the series Curon, Petra (directed by Maria Sole Tognazzi) e Block 181.
The cast also includes the promising young actress Fotinì Peluso
Greek mother and Roman fatherborn in 1999, Fotinì Peluso began studying acting after a degree in Economics. She has been noticed in some fiction such as Don’t kill 2 by Claudio Noce. The big opportunity came with the series The Swan Company by Ivan Cotroneo, thanks to which she began to be courted by cinema.
He got a major role in What will be by Francesco Bruni who called her back, in 2022, for the Netflix series Everything asks for salvation. Always in 2022 he has a part in Francesca Archibugi’s film The hummingbird. Single, after a long relationship with a peer, we will see her again this year in the film Bare hands alongside Alessandro Gassmann.
Of his character in Ten minutesFotini declared «Jasmine has a strong and independent character which he also uses to cover some of his fragilities. What is moving for me is the development that she and her sister achieve over timeit’s exciting that the film tries to tell the relationship between these two women in a light-hearted way.”
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