TORONTO – Paolo Genovese is turning heads with his latest film Madly – distributed by Rai Cinema International – which is currently being test screened at the European Film Market in Germany. Genovese’s writing/directing talents first garnered international acclaim via his record-breaking dramedy film Perfect Strangers (2016), in which guests at a dinner party agree to share all incoming texts and calls aloud. A caution to first time viewers: don’t watch it with your significant other unless you’re prepared to turn over your phone.
But why was it so popular? Perfect Strangers nailed the zeitgeist of the 2010s, a time-period marked by the smart phone’s hijacking of our daily lives. Our Blackberry, iPhone and Samsung devices created digital hiding places, giving way to social media whose platforms helped launch many double lives. Genovese’s 2016 film was so compelling and relatable that it was remade 24 times around the globe – a Guinness world record.
Yet almost a decade after its release, the American market has been denied a remake by Hollywood. The reason? Harvey Weinstein, who was rumoured to have attended the film’s Tribeca screening in 2016, purchased the English language rights in 2017. Within months however, the Weinstein Company took their infamous nose dive with criminal charges being brought against Harvey. Perfect Strangers, a film about the fallout of exposed secrets, was bought and inadvertently buried by a man whose secrets would change the industry forever.
Genovese on Perfect Strangers: “With this film, the idea was to sketch out that secret life that we cannot come clean about. Up until 20 years ago, our secrets were kept inside us. Today, they are buried in our mobile phones, which have become a little bit like our black boxes”. His new film Madly strikes a similar tone. The story unfolds in an apartment over the course of one night, a date between a man and a woman – Piero and Lara (Edoardo Leo and Pilar Fogliati). The hook: their frantic inner thoughts are externalized through other characters.
Reminiscent of the animated film Inside Out (2015), in which a little girl’s emotions are personified by five characters in her mental control room, Madly’s nervous daters have their secret thoughts acted out by designated characters in another room. Piero’s voices include romantic Romeo (Maurizio Lastrico), seductive Eros (Claudio Santamaria), disillusioned Valium (Rocco Papaleo) and the rational Professor (Marco Giallini). Lara’s voices are represented by the dreamer Giulietta (Vittoria Puccini), instinctive Trilli (Emanuela Fanelli), disordered Scheggia (Maria Chiara Giannetta) and feminist (Claudia Pandolfi).
While sharing some common elements with Inside Out, Genovese has clarified that the seedling for Madly’s concept dates back to 1999 while he was collaborating with filmmaker Luca Miniero on a Rai advert. In any case, the highly relatable film seems poised for box office success and with a little luck, perhaps even another record.
(Perfect Strangers Scene courtesy of Medusa Film and Lotus Production; Madly Scene courtesy of Rai Cinema and Lotus Production)
Massimo Volpe is a filmmaker and freelance writer from Toronto: he writes reviews of Italian films/content on Netflix
