DAMNED IF YOU DO,DAMNED IF YOU DON’T
After a career in theatre and a stint as a screenwriter, Gianni Di Gregorio didn't start directing until he was 60. Having delighted on debut with Mid-August Lunch (2008), he settled into a cosy style of slow-burning situation comedy in which he plays variations on a cultured late-life Roman who finds himself having to deal with the vagaries of modern life. In a shrewdly frugal move, he has taken elements from The Salt of Life (2011), Good For Nothing (2014), Citizens of the World (2019), and Never Too Late For Love (2022) and repurposed them in his sixth feature, Come ti muovi, sbagli/Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don't, which is the latest presentation by CinemaItaliaUK.
Living in a large apartment close to his favourite bar, The Professor (Gianni Di Gregorio) has a nice life in the Trastevere district of Rome. He is working on an essay about the Lombards and is delighted when Giovanna (Iaia Forte) gives him a book to help with his research. However, his idyll is shattered when German son-in-law, Helmut (Tom Wlashiha), has a fling with one of his Dante students, Ursula (Hildegard De Stefano), and wife Sofia (Greta Scarano) leaves Heidelberg with pre-teen children, Olga (Anna Losano) and Tommaso (Pietro Serpi), and moves in with her father.
Having commandeered the master bedroom, she leaves the Professor to make up beds for his grandchildren, while he occupies the sofa. Valet Rishad (Rishad Noorani) is far from amused by the intrusion, as Tommaso is a bit of a handful and is forever bickering with his sister. Moreover, Sofia is so intent on resuming her thesis that she is content to leave the kids with their grandfather, who is soon exhausted by Tommaso's boundless energy and refusal to do what he's told.
He takes them to the bar run by Calogero (Gugliemo Rubino) and his youthful assistant, Antonio (Alessandro Bedetti), on whom Olga gets an instant crush. As they tuck into rice balls, Rishad appears to admonish the Professor for letting an asparagus risotto go to waste and hints that there are other gentlemen interested in hiring him. He tries to talk to Sofia, but she is too busy with her books to be disturbed and she chides her father for arguing Helmut's cause by declaring that everyone makes mistakes.
Although relieved to get the kids enrolled at a local school after Tommaso smashes a valuable porcelain soldier, the Professor has to decline Giovanna's invitation to join her at her country retreat because Sofia is relying on him to childmind, while she locks herself away in his study. His task is not made an easier when Rishad quits after Tommaso knocks a mop bucket over while playing football in the corridor and the Professor is delighted when Sofia announces that she's going to Leghorn for a few days, as she needs a break, as he can bundle the grandkids in the car and spend the weekend with Giovanna.
Meanwhile, Helmut notices a homeless man with his belongings on his back during a late-night drinking binge and decides to walk the 1155km to Rome in order to prove to his wife how sorry he is and how much he loves her. She couldn't care less, however, as she has hooked up with old flame, Enrico (Giovanni Onorato), only to be appalled when he spends lunch discussing his mother's health and showing her test results. Giovanna is similarly underwhelmed when she proposes a moonlight walk to a romantic oak tree, only for the Professor to fall asleep in his chair after another long day.
Surprised at being turfed out the next morning, the Professor is dismayed to see Giovanna canoodling with another man in the park and promptly gets into a fight outside the school with the parent of a boy whom Tommaso had punched. Olga, meanwhile, has left Antonio a love letter at the bar and he asks the Professor for advice on how to respond. He sends her a box of artichokes, which she finds hugely romantic and she is livid with Tommaso when he eats them. Sofia also discovers that dating has become a precarious business, when she dines with a dashing classmate (Marco Lo Chiatto) and learns that he is still sleeping with his wife while planning to divorce her.
While crossing the mountains, Helmut is adopted by a wolf. He names him Stern and tosses him titbits while lamenting that people shouldn't be condemned for an error of judgement. He stops off to see Piero della Francesca's `Resurrezione' (1465) - which Sofia had earlier ignored while driving to Rome after her father's recommendation - and this spurs him on to make amends. Unfortunately, his feet are so badly swollen that he has to call the Professor to ask him for a lift. He finds him in the woods in the middle of the night and has misgivings about letting Stern into the car because he's started to shed. As they drive, Helmut confides that Ursula was an irresistible temptation, although he regrets the pain he has caused Sofia. The Professor shrugs, as the German declares that it was inevitable that he would be damned if he did and damned if he didn't sleep with his student.
Such logic doesn't go down well with Sofia when Helmut tries to explain that he has performed a romantic gesture right out of his beloved Dante. As they argue, the Professor watches TV with the kids, while Stern finds himself a comfortable chair. After a while, silence descends and the Professor creeps into the study to find Sofia and Helmut curled up on the sofa.
The next day, the family piles into the car that has been guzzling coins at a parking meter. The Professor agrees to keep Stern, although he hands him over to Antonio after he breaks his arm in a fall when the wolf chases some pigeons in the park. This earns him the sympathy of Giovanna, who invites him to her country house. Hoping for some peace and quiet, the Professor finds her large family in residence and the film ends with him sharing a post-prandial cigarette with her wheelchair-bound father, who urges him to call him `dad'.
From the moment we learn that the Professor is writing about the Lombards (or Longobards), it's clear that he is going to face a German invasion. It has to be said, there's very little to like about Sofia and her offspring. Clearly bruised by Helmut's infidelity, she becomes protectively self-obsessed and almost regresses to singlehood in depositing the kids with the grandfather, who seemingly hadn't been a particularly hands-on parent. While Sofia seeks to recover some confidence and self-respect by flirting with old beaux, Olga develops a sweet crush on the hunky Antonio, while Tommaso behaves like a spoilt brat at every opportunity.
Di Gregario and co-scenarist Marco Pettenello seem to have a shaky grasp on modern children and their preoccupations. But they are even less successful in getting inside Sofia's head and Greta Scarano's flinty performance makes her markedly less empathetic than Tom Wlaschiha errant spouse. Although one suspects that Di Gregario is satirising male emotional immaturity by making Sofia and Giovanna so certain of their wants and needs, the female characters come across as rather strident, while the menfolk (as they tend to do in all Di Gregario's films) stumble towards what's expected of them like amiable bumblers.
As ever, Di Gregario makes measured use of Maurizio Calvesi's camera to capture the ambience of Trastavere, although it's also alert to small details inside the Professor's apartment, which has been knowingly designed Isabella Angelini. The score by Stefano Ratchev and Mattia Carratello is also a gem, as it reinforces the mischievous nature of the action, while also reminding us that it's never too late to start enjoying life. Not every piece slots into place, with the emotional avoirdupois sometimes feeling unearned. Yet, while this isn't Di Gregorio's best work, spending time in his company is always a treat.