The trainers, the review of the Prime Video film with Lillo

The biggest problem of Italian comedies of the last twenty years is the abuse of the concept of “unexpected”. That unexpected event which, instead of acting only as a narrative device, plays a leading role, consequently obscuring an often puny script. We also realize from the production notes, or from the official synopses, how the mishap is used and abused spasmodically. Quick intro to say what happens instead The trainers by Andrea Jublin, the unexpected event that alters the story is absolutely functional, ensuring that the film, which arrived on Prime Videomay have its own reason induced not so much by the stale rules of the genre, but by the spirit of a vision, as free as possible and why not, even sophisticated.

And here we ask ourselves, if The trainers it’s actually a good film, why wasn’t the promotion up to par? Probably an end in itself, as Jublin’s work (how beautiful his Banana of 2014) has its reverberations in the typical emotionality of that independent English-speaking cinema, both in style and vision. It’s not a pure hard comedy, nor a real family movie (and this is a good thing: in Italy we don’t know how to make family movies), and perhaps for this reason its cataloging, due to the rules of streaming, would make it less communicable to users (who in any case ‘they rewarded!). So much so, that The trainersin its simplicity and warmth, would almost seem like a “Sundance” film, if it weren’t for the fact that the protagonist is a Lillo (more or less) free from his masks.

The trainers, the plot: children and dogs together? Yes it can

The story, written by Lara Prando and Michele Abatantuono, starts from a direct denial of the usual cliché of “Never work at the cinema with children or dogs“. Often better than actual actors, dogs and children are the protagonists of The trainers. It happens that Pasquale (Lillo Petrolo), a trainer, after losing a race against his ex-wife Marta (Geppi Cucciari, despicable villain), is forced to give her his beloved dog, Cecchino. Somehow Pasquale has to get back on his feet and try to get his four-legged friend back. What to do? Organize a dog daycare. And here the unexpected breaks in: thanks to an announcement, the dog daycare is mistaken for a kindergarten for children. Forced to make a virtue of necessity, Pasquale tries to hold his ground, pretending to have the right pedagogical skills, opening the doors to a group of boys and girls who, we would say, are rowdy and unaccustomed to togetherness.

Tenderness and indie spirit

Hand-operated machine, enterprising spirit (funny quote from Lord of the Flies), dosed humor, and never pleased. Deliberately out of time and out of place, like Lillo’s Pasquale who lets go of the pop imagery he has built for a moment, letting himself go to a definable story of training, which precisely makes spontaneity and time a sort of safe refuge, in which feelings and benevolence are somehow the engine capable of still making a difference, making us better and, above all, making us at the emotional level of dogs and children. You might say, arousing emotions with children and dogs is easy. True, but you have to know how to best organize the human and animal material available, so as not to descend into the didactic, the fairytale-like at all, or indeed into the usual clichés of the film for the whole family.

Of course, then it wouldn’t have taken much to make The Trainers successful in its entirety: an ending that would have included at least an appendix, resulting almost cut for what seems too hasty a resolution. However, the absent-minded divertissement sought by Andrea Jublin remains, placing women at the center of the film misadventures of an ordinary man who doesn’t want to give up, but rather tries in every way to move forward, aiming to find a place in the world again. Nothing essential, yet it will be Jublin’s indie style, it will be the careless tenderness of a screenplay that has a lot to say, that The trainers ends up succeeding precisely where other similar operations have failed, finding the right fit even within a tender simplicity.