This 2023 film is not at all what you think it is about. You won’t find out until the very end, why she is going through that door and then the whole movie is a question of “What the F?” This is not a Fellini type film – but it does have weird scenes. I felt it was more like Roberto Benigni’s film “Life is Beautiful.” Making a joke at the macabre. It is not set up as a mystery, but it is when you see the ending and think back at the whole story. It is like a schizophrenic journey. Didn’t this happen? Didn’t we see the set up for all of this conclusion?

My boyfriend hated it so much that he couldn’t stop talking about it all night. “It was a red herring!” He declared at the end. But he was so angry that what he thought was going to happen, did not happen. That is why I began to love it even more. And he is the Italian! And this film won 6 Italian Academy Awards. His hatred began to make me more excited because this is what art is. It is something that bothers you or makes you love it or intrigues you so much that you can’t stop trying to figure it out. How many people remember seeing a white background with a simple red dot at the art museum? Everyone says “I could have done that.” The answer though is “But you didn’t.” We have a love/hatred for art that makes us think.

The film manipulates you and he did not want to be manipulated. It didn’t manipulate me because I tend to be a Europhile and I trust where the director is taking us and figure out the why later. The director IS the main character in this film. That was quite fascinating to learn. The relationship between she and her daughter are somewhat similar to Sophia Loren and her daughter in “Two Women.” I love how they are in their own trauma bond with the father/husband. One can’t escape until she is an adult and the other has no reality of what escape would look like. You want her to. So many times in the movie, there is that “on the edge of your seat moment.” You are begging her “Go… go… just go damn it.” This is good movie making.

Now, there are mistakes in this film, that unlike the “Sixth Sense” where you have to watch it again to see that they didn’t make mistakes, because the director and writers purposely wrote the scenes (and directed them) so we would go back and look, but no, she did. I am not sure if she did this on purpose though, in her art of manipulation. But, when you watch the movie, you will quickly realize a few things. Why didn’t she leave the money for the daughter on Sunday? Why did her best friend say “You have to think of the children?”

So, there is absolutely NO clue whatsoever, about what this movie is going to be about, except when it is mentioned once in the movie – I think it was at the dinner table with the potential in-laws. There is a scene with a bunch of women (in each of their houses) preparing for the day, and you are just going along with it.

Have at it! Watch the film and be prepared for the 1946 ending.

C’è ancora domani