It rarely happens that a film manages to be on everyone’s lips and become unmissable, the thing to see absolutely. When it happens, it’s on the launching pad to become a box office phenomenon that manages to cash in week after week thanks to word of mouth. People, not marketing or merchants, convince other people to see it. After this wave runs out and the waters calm down, dissenting voices often arrive, first timid, then more courageous and finally bearers of a real banner: “you were wrong, the film isn’t what you all say, it’s nothing special!”. Also There’s still tomorrow he is not immune to it, at least that’s what emerges from reading the comments here and there now that the film has arrived on the platforms with a register that is often contrary to that of the spectators who saw it in the theater. This does him credit. This is proof that cannot be ignored There’s still tomorrow.
Is Paola Cortellesi’s film a masterpiece? No, and no one wants to impose this thought (few have defined it that way). A film can bring out a collective passion without being flawless in everything. It is undeniable, however, that there are some within the formula of the film elements that were able to resonate with the public. If it were easy, of course There’s still tomorrow we would see two a year. Instead, Paola Cortellesi and her screenwriters performed a miracle: they made an Italian film that she knew how to count. One who moved his audience, but also made people angry, entered political discourse, schools and became a yardstick. But how did they do it?
Paola Cortellesi is Paola Cortellesi
Honesty is needed. Paola Cortellesi is a phenomenon. That very tense and melancholy face in the black and white of the poster is very powerful. A pose different from all the roles to which she has accustomed her audience. Her ability to move from shows to cinema, passing through more traditional serials, has made her one of the few actresses to speak to a transversal audience. The quality of her masks and the consistency with which she carried out a gradual transition to melancholy (the beautiful Childrenagain with Valerio Mastandrea, is an example) they made her the right woman with the right story.
It must not have been easy for the other actors to work so generously on stage to make his own Delia is a symbol of many other women. The tragicomic sidekick that is Marisa is a well-balanced counterpoint by Emanuela Fanelli. THEThe cynical side of the film that embodies some of the thoughts of the viewer. Mastandrea puts more evil into Ivano than you would expect. Not too much, just a pinch more than necessary. This changes the whole dynamic of a film that drags a lot in the middle part (with literal surreal explosions that leave you a little perplexed). However, he manages to find the right final satisfaction thanks to a strong antagonist from whom he can try to rebel.
There’s Still Tomorrow tells the right people
Italian cinema has accustomed us to seeing either families strangled by difficulties or other upper-class families, full of useless problems. In 2023 there was a rebirth of ordinary people (we told you about it here). People who stay in the situation they are in and fight. He has a gentle anger. He doesn’t want to break the world, but change it one step at a time.
They are people resigned to the state of things to the extent that they don’t wait for a miracle from above. But they try to act not to change everything, but to try to emancipate themselves, to obtain a right (Born for you) or to assert one’s dignity as a victim (LAF building, One Hundred Sundays). They are ordinary people. Like much of the public who goes to see them.
Laughing, without there being anything to laugh about
It’s easy for dramatic films to convey content. Even an unsuccessful drama sometimes manages to bring home “a message”. For comedies it’s much more difficult. There’s still tomorrow he is wise and systematic in his constantly breaking the boundaries between comedy and drama. We don’t understand anything. Should we laugh at the bizarre dance scene between husband and wife? Of course not, given that it is the solution that the comedy finds to indicate the beatings. Likewise, in the most dramatic moments you find yourself smiling. Thanks to the simplicity of this family from the past, in which many can find at least a small resemblance to that of their grandparents or their parents.
There is the elderly patriarch left in a room waiting for death that never comes. There is religion, a very important fixed presence in post-war Italian families (even when it is rejected). Paola Cortellesi shows the first hints of a community that is about to form. You can find them in the squares, at the market. Glimpses of the Italy that will be. There is nothing (neo)realistic about it. Little is historically accurate. But do we really need precision to show ways of living that are not rooted in a specific moment in time?
There’s still tomorrow It’s a light-hearted drama. Or a comedy with a strong social heart. Whether it’s one or the other, the balance was spot on.
The right ending…
There’s still tomorrow It has many flaws. He is didactic in some passages, in the dialogues between women or even in the situations that are created. The American soldier characters never get along with the pace of the film. Nino, by Vinicio Marchioni, is written only as a function of the final twist and Giulio by Francesco Centorame is an underlining of the theme of violent and possessive patriarchy thrown too much in the face.
But the beauty of films is that they should not be evaluated individually, but as a whole. Sometimes a powerful ending like that of There’s still tomorrow changes the weights with which the film is measured. Nino’s plot becomes almost brilliant: what we saw as a film-stereotype man… was actually a film character that Delia overcomes without remorse. The other problems remain, but you remember the emotion with which you leave the room much more than the journey that led you there.
A twist in a film that promised no twists. An idea that overturns the interpretation with which we saw the film. It is that of viewers accustomed to too many romance stories in which the female characters are dependent on the male ones. The revolution of the finale of There’s still tomorrow it lies precisely in having taken our unconscious filmic prejudices and overturned them. All this under the light of the sun. Those who were attentive managed to predict the ending! Credit goes to the film, which measured out the clues well, not just to those who intuited.
… at the right time
Paola Cortellesi arrived in theaters on October 26th with There’s still tomorrow. On November 11th the crime news reported the murder of Giulia Cecchettin. In those days, cinema helped parents and teachers to find words, to propose reflections and solutions. It was no coincidence that fueled word of mouth for the film. Since in Italy there is a femicide every two days, the point is not the coincidence with the news story, the point is that Paola Cortellesi has provided content on which to start a discussion. You have opened a dialogue on a shame passed too often in silence or in resignation.
Words have been spent in abundance on the drama of feminicides. Many empty, too many made of rhetoric alone. There’s still tomorrow he tried to do more: where there were no more speeches to be made he created a story. She then left a question: after this redemption ending, what happens to Delia during the end credits? What fate awaits her on that fateful tomorrow? The answer is left outside the room. As good films do.
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