Author's judgement: 
Cinema marathon: this week we offer you the vision of four films but the quality stars we give to only one who amply deserves them: Three posters ad Ebbing, Missouri. Let's clear the field immediately: we are in the wake of a certain cinema made in the USA capable of grasping all the plots, all the readings and all the possible contradictions on American society, culture and politics at the beginning of the century. We have already seen such films: these are stories of ordinary injustice, of banal racial hatred, of normal allergy to gender diversity in a small town in a state in the deep South of the United States, the place of easy weapons, of social issues never healed, of the last frontier culture (as Missouri was) never resolved and overcome.
A woman, the extraordinary Frances McDormand, wife of Joel Coen and unforgettable star of Fargo, seeks justice for her daughter who was raped, killed and burned on her way home. The plot suggests no culprit, therefore all guilty, and the inertia of the investigation suggests that, perhaps, hardly anyone is interested in the search for the real culprit. The film mixes pure drama, social denunciation, and there is no shortage of twist with an episode of humor as cold as a blade because, in any case, in that small world of that small country, almost all the evil in the world is hidden. What to do? Justice alone? There is plenty of time to think, to reflect, to understand.
The film is almost completely based on the role of the mother offended in injustice, effective in her essential and rough gestures and expressiveness, and deeply affects the viewer's emotion. High acting school, rightly awarded several times as a leading actress who is rarely seen on the screen. The other actors who build a credible fresco of humanity are no less. Tight script and great cinematography without any need to resort to effects or stage tricks: simply good writing in the hands of an excellent director, the British Martin McDonagh.
The second film, for those who haven't seen it, has already been in theaters for a few days and deserves to be reported. It's about Like a cat in the ring road with two protagonists of certain interest: Antonio Albanese and Paola Cortellesi. The film is directed by Riccardo Milani (husband of Cortellesi herself) trained in the good school of Italian comedy: former assistant director of Mario Monicelli and Nanni Moretti. The story is as simple as it is effective: two teenagers with families of radical and profound diversity behind them live their tender love story while their respective parents manage the social and cultural conflict that divides them with great difficulty. All inspired by real situations, the social housing in the Roman suburbs – Bastogi – and the real people who live there. If Italian cinema sometimes holds up to the impact of the crisis in audiences at the box office (the 2017 data is alarming) it is also thanks to the intelligence and creativity of those looking for new languages and new narrative ideas. Everything flows with the right rhythms and the comic gimmicks make the cost of the ticket good.
Exactly the opposite, however, with regard to an old glory of Italian comedy: Carlo Verdone in Blessed madness. Written, directed and interpreted by Verdone himself, the story takes us through the story of a mature man abandoned by his wife who seeks comfort in occasional encounters on the Web, with the support of a nice Ilenia Pastorelli too similar to the character who made her famous in jeeg Robot. All too little and trivial in situations, environments, characters who can't make half of what they could and should. Verdone himself is exhausted in his creative vein and there is no trace of the rich gallery of stories, men and situations that made his role great in the history of Italian cinema. Frost in the room: he struggles to crack a smile for a few jokes.
Finally, it deserves mention Naples Veiledby Ferzan Ozpetek. First of all the usual invisible character, the actant, always present throughout the film who alone holds up the narrative, as the title itself suggests. It is the Naples of mysteries, of secrets, of millenary history in many of its aspects that is still rich and fascinating. The film has a respectable cast starting from Giovanna Mezzogiorno, together with Anna Bonaiuto, Peppe Barra and other excellent protagonists. The plot refers to a detective story, a thriller, on the death of the protagonist's young lover. Alleys, panoramas, suggestions of a Naples always generous with passions for good and for beauty that shows how bad it often represents. Veiled and mysterious, precisely, like this history of cinema.
