Francesco Sossai’s latest is an effortlessly charming and utterly delightful romp through the Italian countryside from the POV of a passenger in a car with two old-timers reliving their long-gone glory days.
Carlobianchi (Sergio Romano) and Doriano (Pierpaolo Capovilla) are charismatic yet penniless fiftysomething petty criminals with larger-than-life personalities and a treasure trove of stories about their glory days. They’ve never really left their hometown in Veneto and prowl around its haunts like a duo of alleycats. Unwitting members of the so-called Lost Generation — men born in the 1970s, in a time of intense economic growth who, after the 2008 crisis, found themselves in unrecognizable terrain — they subsist on memories and bar fare. Filling their late-starting days and their nights that turn into mornings with drink, mounting tabs are getting harder and harder to pay. If only they could dig up the cash their old friend Genio (Andrea Pennacchi) buried after a job before he left for Argentina…
When they meet Giulio (Filippo Scotti), a sweet and shy architecture student who is adrift in life, the old-timers decide to take the hapless boy under their wing and embark on a road trip through the Venetian plains to revive his zest for life.
Loosely pulling from their own experiences, co-writers Francesco Sossai and Adriano Candiago brilliantly revive the beloved Commedia all’italiana style. Impeccably shot on film stock by director of photography Massimiliano Kuveiller (who also shot Diciannove, TIFF ’24), The Last One for the Road is director Sossai’s sophomore film. Inspired by filmmakers like Marco Ferreri, Elio Petri, Francesco Rosi, and Carlo Lizzani, his latest is an homage to special places that live in our memories — bars and streets from our youth, now demolished to make way for new development — and a call to redraw our inner maps.
DOROTA LECH
Screenings
Scotiabank 13
TIFF Lightbox 2
Scotiabank 10