THE FIRST DAY OF YOUR LIFE.
Paolo Genovese has a unique place in cinema history, as his 2016 conversation piece, Perfect Strangers, has been remade a record 21 times around the world. He told the Cineuropa website that he's not a fan of remakes, but there are distinct echoes of familiar stories by Charles Dickens and Frank Capra in Il primo giorno della miavita!/The First Day of My Life, which is the latest presentation from CinemaItaliaUK.
Adapted from Genovese's 2018 novel, this was going to be an English-language picture, set in New York with an all-star cast. However, the cornavirus pandemic prompted a change of plan and the action now takes place in some lesser seen parts of Rome.
One rainy night, a man (Toni Servillo) picks up three people in his estate car and drops them off at the Hotel Columbia. Ex-gymnast Emilia (Sara Serraiocco) needs a wheelchair to get to her room, while life coach Napoleone (Valerio Mastandrea) and cop Arianna (Margherita Buy) check into the adjoining rooms. They meet with Uomo in the breakfast room the next day and he introduces them to 12 year-old Daniele (Gabriele Cristini), who is hungry even though they are in a form of limbo having committed suicide the day before. They are told they have been granted a week to reconsider their actions and Uomo ferries them around Rome so that they can witness unseen Napoleone's body being fished out of the Tiber, the press gathering outside the former Olympian's apartment after she jumped from a window, and Max (Giorgio Tirabassi) and Arianna's other police colleagues toasting her at their favourite bar after she had blown her brains out while on patrol.
Despite Uomo playing jazz in the car, the mood is sombre as Emilia and Napoleone smoke on the balcony and tease each other about the discovery of their corpses and wonder if it's possible to die twice. Downstairs, Uomo chats with Donna (Vittoria Puccini), who needs to borrow the station wagon, as the three in her care are coming towards the end of their week and she still has work to do to convince them to reconsider.
Day Two starts with Arianna describing how her 16 year-olddaughter, Olivia, had keeled over on a basketball court and she explains how she could no longer be a glass half full kind of person because God had pissed in it. They visit the hospital where Daniele is in a coma. He's a YouTuber with 900,000 watching him eat vast quantities of food, in spite of being a diabetic. His parents (Lidia Vitale and Antonio Gerardi) don't believe that he skipped an insulin shot on purpose and Daniele urges them to listen to the doctor so that they finally understand the pain he's been in.
At a nearby theatre, the group watches Napoleone conduct a motivational session, in which he coaxes the bashful Nicolas (Davide Combusti) into singing Leonard Cohen's `Alleluia'. A colleague, Zeno (Thomas Trabacchi), comes on to the stage to mourn Napoleone's passing, but his wife, Greta (Elena Lietti), stands in the audience to denounce the gathering as a sham and encourage everyone to leave and find happiness on their own terms.
The next morning, Emilia watches as Daniele starts skipping in a bid to lose weight. She is telling him about the hours of training required to be fit when they hear voices coming from another room. Uomo is watching highlights from Emilia's gymnastics career on a bank of televisions and she briefly takes a pride in her achievements. However, he shows her footage of competitors falling off the apparatus and she snaps that she didn't get up after her accident. She accuses him of trivialising her suffering, but Arianna disagrees when she avers that the agony will never ease.
Back at the Columbia, Napoleone tells Uomo that Zeno is in love with Greta and will ask her to move to Milan with him. But Uomo assures him that nothing is written in stone. Daniele apologises to Emilia for laughing at the tumbles and Arianna asks about the video of him eating chicken that went viral and led to him becoming Johnny Big Boy. He reveals that his father had suggested setting up a video channel, but it cost Daniele his anonymity and led to him being bullied. However, Arianna doubts that he'll be granted his wish to stay invisible.
On Day Three, Uomo takes them to a cemetery and is sad that a man called Simone missed out on meeting them all because he couldn't be persuaded. Next stop is an abandoned cinema, where each watches a brief clip of the people who will become important to them if they live. The short reels raise more questions than answers, but Uomo insists he can't divulge any more details. Nevertheless, the foursome joke about Daniele trying the popcorn Uomo had given them (which they couldn't eat) and agree that Napoleone's bridge jump was the best method of suicide. Although he joins in the chatter, a pall has re-descended by the time they reach the hotel.
As Day Four begins, Napoleone strides to the nearest Metropolitana station and throws himself under a train. Uomowatches sadly from the platform before escorting his charge back to the Columbia, where Arianna is explaining to Emilia how much she misses the eased pain of losing her child. They are surprised that Napoleone has tried again, but he reveals that he envies them having a single reason for their anguish. He doesn't know why he feels depressed and can't see the point of trying to focus on a future he doesn't want.
Emilia chases after him when he storms out and discovers that she can walk in her limbo state. Rather than be pleased, she admits that she had become accustomed to her chair and felt relief at the removal of the pressure to compete when she had become a perennial runner-up. She taunts Napoleone for being a poor life coach and he agrees with her. She's joined on a bench by Tomasso (Lino Guanciale), who claims not to be an angel, but reminds Emilia that even though everyone dies and life goes on, her story will remain entirely unique.
As Uomo has given them a day off, Arianna goes for a walk with Daniele, who wonders why his parents failed to notice how miserable he was. Meanwhile, Donna finds Uomo in a bistro and sympathises with his struggle with Napoleone. He wants to let him die, but sees something of himself in him and this drives him to keep trying. After all, Napoleone could see a light, as Emilia does when Tommasso invites her to a birthday drink with his friends.
Arianna takes Daniele to her apartment and gets cross when he touches stuff in Olivia's bedroom. He claims that he is the younger man in the film Arianna saw at the cinema, as he recognised his back garden. She's confused and remorseful when he runs away from her chiding. But she gets to apologise when she tucks him up for the night and he sleepily calls her `ma'. Emilia also comes back and asks Uumo why he made her visible and he shrugs that he has free will and occasionally decides to use it.
Across the city, Napoleone attends his own funeral and watches Greta in the pulpit as she wishes she could have saved him from himself. Donna walks up to him and pricks his finger and informs him he now has the freedom to make his own choice. When he returns to the station, however, he hears Nicolas busking `Alleluia' and returns to the hotel to find Uomo smoking outside. Napoleone asks if the others are back and Uomo wonders if he's sufficiently engaged with the lives of others to want to start living again.
An excursion on Day Five takes them to a wooden shack in an industrial outskirt, where Uomo cooks a seafood pasta that they are able to eat. He grants them a wish and Emilia asks for a red dress, while Daniele wants his parents to find the letterhe left them. Arianna promises to let Uomo know her desire when they're alone, while Napoleone declines the offer altogether. They smile when Daniele strips off to swim in the river and Uomo confirms Napoleone's suspicion that Emilia can walk if she wants to.
As night falls after a lovely day and Uomo takes them to a viewing point over the Eternal City. He dims the lights in all the buildings and shows them how few people are happy at any one time. But he reminds them that such rare moments are precious and that one has to be alive in order to be open to them.
Arianna asks Uomo to show her if her daughter still exists and Day Six starts with him taking her back to her old house to show her places she associates with Olivia. She smiles and cries, but informs Uomo that memories and a sense of presence won't make life any more bearable. Daniele also receives a setback, as his parents find the letter, but misunderstand the cry for help and implore their son to come out of his coma so they take personal control of the social media career he simply doesn't want.
He pulls the plug on himself and rides the subway alone, while Arianna sees her mother bringing flowers to the burial plot she shares with Olivia. Uomo joins Daniele on the train to confide that even people who love us let us down before restoring his spirits by showing how they can levitate (because Daniele has been convinced from the outset that Uomo can fly). Much to his chagrin, he can't make Emilia get out of the car to join Tommasso at his party, as she has never had any luck with men and doesn't want to come second in the romantic stakes, either.
Napoleone finds Greta in a restaurant and he asks Uomo to let him speak to her. He refuses, but makes him wait because she's dining with Zeno and has some news. She can't go to Milan because she's pregnant and wants the child to be born in Napoleone's city and he shoots a distressed look at Uomobecause he realises that the child in the cinema film was his son and that he will never know him unless he reverses his decision.
While the others spend Day Seven thinking in their rooms, Uomo puts photographs from their pasts on the wall, along with snaps of the last week. Once night comes, he picks them up in the car and Daniele asks if anyone will remember them. As Uomo drives off, everyone finds themselves back on the rainy night a week earlier, as Daniele takes a tray of 40 doughnuts to eat before his webcam, Napoleone writes Greta a note after finding their luxury apartment empty, and Arianna ignores Max's question about why she always works the night shift.
When he goes for coffee, Arianna pulls the trigger but misses and speeds round to Daniele's house. He has tossed the doughnuts out of the window and joyfully joins Arianna, as they drive to Emilia's residence to find her on the roof turning somersaults along the ledge. She runs to them for a hug before they head for the bridge, where Uomo is telling Napoleonethat he bitterly regrets choosing to die when he was given his week of grace. But there's no talking him down and Arianna tells Daniele that Napoleone must have thought better about coming (even though his glasses are perched on the capstone)and they leave.
Uumo readies the hotel for the next guests (but doesn't see the message that Daniele had scrawled on the wall behind his bed). Out in the city, a woman climbs over the rails to jump from a bridge. But she's stopped by Napoleone, who asks for a week of her life in the hope he can convince her to reconsider.
The performances couldn't be better. Chiara Balducci'sproduction design is envelopingly atmospheric, while Fabrizzio Lucci's images of the wood-panelled interiors and the imaginatively contrasting locations reinforce the contemplative mood. Consuelo Catucci's measured editing and Mauricio Filardo's unobtrusive score also contribute to the solemnity of the ambience.
The problem lies in the scenario concocted by Genovese in conjunction with Isabella Aguilar, Paolo Costella, and Rolando Ravello. It's fine to leave Uumo and Donna's status a mystery, just as there's no need to explain how they can access the past, present, and future or why they cannot be seen by living humans. We don't even need to discover why they require a station wagon to get around Rome and why the one they have between them needs petrol and why (if it's visible) it's never been pulled over by the police for driving along while seemingly being unoccupied.
But, if they're to root for the deliberating quarter, viewers deserve to know more about the backgrounds that have driven them to despair and the reasons they might have for stepping back from the brink. Unlike A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life, the emphasis is less on what was and what still might be than on the gambits that Uomo employs to show his charges that there is more to life than the traumas that beset them. For all the sensitivity of Valerio Mastandrea, Margherita Buy, Sara Serraiocco, and Gabriele Cristini's acting, their characters never discuss their reactions and emotions in the way that Ebenezer Scrooge and George Bailey do. Consequently, the audience never really gets an insight into either their personalities or their mindsets, with the result that, while this makes for an affecting watch, it has nothing new or profound to say about human nature or the great mysteries of life (and death).