The Magnificent Eight

During a group session with their therapist, the eight members of the group are suddenly orphaned: while they are busy talking, unbeknownst to them their female therapist passes away at her desk, behind the dark lenses of her sunglasses. After their initial bewilderment, they set out to find a replacement therapist. The search proves uselessly exhausting, and they finally decide to run future meetings by themselves...
Taking its cue  from unusual circumstances, “Ma che colpa abbiamo noi” (the title is borrowed from a famous song by the Rokes), Carlo Verdone's latest film is his first in three years. The screenplay for the film, which was something of a labour of love, links back to two of Verdone's best works: “Compagni di scuola” (1988), whose harmonious ensemble-structure it mimics, and “Damned the Day I Met You” (1992), from which it borrows the psychoanalysis theme. Nonetheless, this piece lacks the authentic malice of the first film (and the impossibility of benefitting from the classic Aristotelian three-part structure produces, to boot, fateful effects of disjointed narrative); from the second film, it lacks  the bittersweet nature of reflections on the working mechanisms of a couple. Although vivified by the performances of good actors, the film unravels in a confused, jumbled manner, even failing to produce many laughs; compared to the coarseness of his most recent offerings, however, here Verdone rediscovers a sense of measure and grace that are not to be scorned. A transitional work, all things considered; marking the beginning of the second stage in the career of the Roman filmmaker, although the objectives he sets himself remain to be clearly brought into focus.

Francesco Troiano 

The Magnificent Eight

During a group session with their therapist, the eight members of the group are suddenly orphaned: while they are busy talking, unbeknownst to them their female therapist passes away at her desk, behind the dark lenses of her sunglasses. After their initial bewilderment, they set out to find a replacement therapist. The search proves uselessly exhausting, and they finally decide to run future meetings by themselves...
Taking its cue  from unusual circumstances, “Ma che colpa abbiamo noi” (the title is borrowed from a famous song by the Rokes), Carlo Verdone's latest film is his first in three years. The screenplay for the film, which was something of a labour of love, links back to two of Verdone's best works: “Compagni di scuola” (1988), whose harmonious ensemble-structure it mimics, and “Damned the Day I Met You” (1992), from which it borrows the psychoanalysis theme. Nonetheless, this piece lacks the authentic malice of the first film (and the impossibility of benefitting from the classic Aristotelian three-part structure produces, to boot, fateful effects of disjointed narrative); from the second film, it lacks  the bittersweet nature of reflections on the working mechanisms of a couple. Although vivified by the performances of good actors, the film unravels in a confused, jumbled manner, even failing to produce many laughs; compared to the coarseness of his most recent offerings, however, here Verdone rediscovers a sense of measure and grace that are not to be scorned. A transitional work, all things considered; marking the beginning of the second stage in the career of the Roman filmmaker, although the objectives he sets himself remain to be clearly brought into focus.

Francesco Troiano