Author's rating:
The difficulties of a modern, metropolitan couple in having a second child with all the problems that can arise within the couple. This is the essential plot of Sons, in theaters for a few days, signed by Giuseppe Bonito but written by Mattia Torre, who passed away recently. We know about him that he wrote important texts more for theater and television than for cinema and even this same film is based on one of his works, a stage monologue, recited by Valerio Mastandrea which he himself then brought to the big screen, in the good company of an always good one Paula Cortellesi.
The film, in fact, is all a pure, dramatic theatrical story, essential and real about real life, about the small and big problems that most Italian families face every day. It's not a comedy and it's not the way Italian comedy has been and is usually told in the cinema between the tragic and the dramatic. In this case, it is more of a photograph, of a marked hatching of situations, of small daily stories brought back to a cinematic scale. We laugh a lot (fortunately, as it doesn't happen easily) and at the same time we are stimulated to think, to reflect, and so much, about who we are and where we are going, about how the families of this country are facing the economic crisis, the social and cultural level that now seems to be widespread at every level.
The film is predominantly a writing job where everything else seems almost irrelevant (however well done) and, to describe well Children, it is enough to read this small fragment of the original screenplay which, moreover, concerns exactly the world and the way of narrating this Italian "moment" on film and television. The protagonist's mother speaks during a close confrontation:
“You (young people, ed.) must understand one thing once and for all. We elderly people are a silent and calm force, but if we get pissed it's pain. Because we are more. We are many. For every 100 young people there are 165 elderly people. And this means an absolute majority, that is, virtually, the Chamber, the Senate and the Government of the Republic. We have TVs, because we influence schedules and editorial lines: Sanremo is made for us, and so is the great national-popular fiction. Advertisers, around which the world revolves, have us as their obsession. The owned houses and savings accounts on which the entire economy of this country rests – and without which we shut down like Greece – are in our hands. The theater holds thanks to us, and so does what remains of the cinema. And with the pension issue we keep the entire national economy in check. We just need a little more awareness and cohesion, and we'll finally be ready to kick everyone's ass".
How not to think about the demographic dimensions, the changes in individual and collective languages, the new lifestyles, the new models of audiovisual consumption and how and how quickly the market relates to these changes. Perhaps a somewhat brutal and exaggerated reasoning is proposed but not far from the truth. And just to see this dialogue is worth the cost of the ticket. Not to mention the comical, surreal side: well done and balanced, just enough to enjoy many scenes and jokes capable of eliciting a healthy laugh. And also of this, of a healthy and scathing vitality and of a correct way of telling it, with the right language, Italian cinema has so much need.
