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drama
“The Many Voices of Love”
Director: Paolo Genovese
Screenplay: Paolo Genovese, Isabella Aguilar, Lucia Calamaro. Cast: Pilar Fogliati, Edoardo Leo, Emanuela Fanelli and others. Duration: 1 hour, 36 minutes (15 years). Language: Italian. Cinema premiere
She, a furniture restorer with her own business, and he, a divorced high school teacher with a daughter, try to get into bed with each other. Ideally, perhaps more than that, but moving out is complicated enough for two overthinking adults – “in today’s society,” as they say. Or at least, as you would expect from writer and director Paolo Genovese. All of his conceptual comedies and dramas of ideas are moral statements about the eternally human in changing times.
In the youth of the smartphone, he had a hit in 2016 with “What are you keeping from me?” where an adult dinner completely degenerates when new party games are introduced: swapping phones and reading each other’s private messages. The slightly mysterious “Allt du oskarna kan du fja” (2017) was about the internet’s false promise that you can have your wishes fulfilled without paying a price. In metaphorical form.
This time It’s all about romance and sex with obstacles. But the obstacles lie in the brain. On the way there, Piero (Edoardo Leo) gets stuck in front of the ATM. Should he even wear these and if so, which ones? Fruit flavor? Gnarled? What do the different variants signal? Lara (Pilar Fogliati) wonders what she’s wearing, whether the apartment is too dark and why she invited him home in the first place instead of having a normal first date at the pub.
Over the course of the evening they both try endlessly to read each other. Was Lara disappointed when Piero said he was a high school teacher and not a university professor? Is he married or why does he get a late call and disappear into the balcony?
The reason you know exactly what they’re thinking is because there are eight other roles in the film.
The reason you know exactly what they’re thinking is because there are eight other roles in the film. Four women chattered in her skull and four men chattered in his. Every little corner around which they reach each other, there are long discussions between the “brain minds”: one just wants to lie down, one wants romance, one is suspicious, one hates all men/is afraid of all women, and so on.
It could have been Be funny. An awkward date commented on by two outspoken choirs. Woody Allen has been using vivid thoughts since his talking sperm hoped for a successful date in 1972’s Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex but Were Too Afraid to Ask. And he is not alone.
It quickly becomes monotonous here. Fogliati – an Anne Hathaway Italian with livelier eyes and a unique smile – does her best to bring the lines to life, and there’s a natural attraction between her nervous energy and Leo’s shy warmth. You simply wish them luck, but soon find yourself wishing you’d seen them at the pub, where there’s more to see.
Genovese must have gotten lazy. “Everything You Want for You Can Have” has been produced in no less than twelve versions in twelve different countries since 2016. Maybe he was hoping for something similar quick solution This time, however, it would be more difficult for him to benefit from the rights. It’s not that the idea is unique, as I said.
Next time: Write the concept on a napkin and send it to a screenwriter who won’t give up until it’s actually fun, and to a director who has the courage to create a world where it actually feels possible.
See more. Three better, fresh Italian films: “There’s Always Tomorrow” (2023), “The Chimera” (2024) and “Vermiglio” (2025).
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