A Year in London
Flaminia Graziadei’s LGBT+ Anglo-Italian romance is in desperate need of a better screenplay.
Melanie Liburd and Nina Pons
Image courtesy of Miracle/LonRom Films.
by MANSEL STIMPSON
Flaminia Graziadei’s second feature may be centred on London but it also contains scenes set in Italy with sequences shot both in Rome and in the southern region of Basilicata. It is apt enough that A Year in London has been described as an Anglo-Italian love story and indeed Graziadei, who herself wrote the piece with Laura Jane Swain, possesses dual nationality being both British and Italian. However, it was the UK’s capital city which won out when in 2012 Graziadei founded her independent company LonRom Film Production with the specific aim that its work would centre on tales such as this featuring LGBT+ themes. Even though such films are relatively easy to find these days, it is probably the case that dramas offering lesbian love stories get less than their fair share of this expanding market and it is a full six months since I was able to praise Joy Gharoro-Akpojotor’s Dreamers which if less than perfect had a truly touching and memorable lesbian love affair at its heart.
In the circumstances one would like to be able to welcome this new work which is patently well intended. It tells the story of how Olivia Romero (Nina Pons) chooses to leave Basilicata where her elderly parents live in order to spend a year in Britain. Her hope is to develop her talents in design having inherited certain skills from her father who had been a tailor. This is how she finds herself sharing accommodation in London and studying at an academy of culture where her teacher is Nina Clarke (Melanie Liburd). Life in a capital city is very different from what she had known at home and she finds herself in a new environment. There is much partying, but even more significant is the fact that lesbians seem to flourish in this setting including Nina herself. However, the latter seems to put her career first and declares that she does not do relationships. Nevertheless, she not only regards Olivia as an especially talented student but takes her on a trip to Rome as her assistant. Olivia may have had a rich boyfriend in Italy – Paolo (Matteo Bassi) – but it soon becomes obvious that she is falling for Nina and will be ready to consider her life afresh should Nina revise her stance and decide that a committed relationship would make sense.
Although the main setting is an academy and not a fashion magazine, one can imagine A Year in London being set up in the belief that there was real box-office potential in a work which blended a lesbian love story with the world of fashion, the latter element having featured so successfully in The Devil Wears Prada. In addition, the location shooting for the widescreen in Italy as well as in London would be seen as a further draw. But, however promising the notion – and the film is nicely photographed by Francesca Ciccone – Graziadei's film is seriously let down by its screenplay. Its failings are such that it feels like a first draft which needed substantial rewrites in order to make it effective. It is bad enough that much of the dialogue lacks conviction but equally harmful is the fact that as drawn the characters lack depth and detail. In the case of the subsidiary figures who include Olivia's fellow students there are simply too many of them who are portrayed without enough background and individuality to establish any interest in them. As for our two leading characters, the plot requires that they should be drawn to each other but neither Olivia's discovery of her lesbianism nor the conflict within Nina over her priorities are adequately dramatised. In time Paolo will discover the truth about his girlfriend and will then behave in an improbable way that is set up to ensure that, whatever the final outcome, Olivia and Nina will be put at loggerheads. If the dialogue lacks conviction early on, it only gets worse. An exchange before Paolo realises his situation finds Olivia declaring that her work is her future to which he responds "I thought I was your future" and an older and wiser man (Ralph Palka) is on hand at the film’s climax to spell out the film’s message: "love is everything”.
Other details rankle too. Not least it is bizarre that the openly gay actor Nagaieh Dad should be willing to play the kind of gay role which is so over the top that it brings to mind the effeminate stereotype portrayals of gay men from at least half a century ago. For that matter, although there are scenes about fashion shows at graduation time, much less is made of these than one might expect and when it comes to thin characterisation it is typical that reference is made just once to the fact that Nina comes from the Caribbean but that this background is never built on in any way. Given all these drawbacks, Melanie Liburd and Nina Pons do their best, but the film was never going to have sufficient depth to draw the viewer in emotionally. The competent direction by Flaminia Graziadei suggests that her work in that capacity is far more assured than her writing. In passing I made reference earlier to Dreamers and remembering the way in which the central relationship there came fully and movingly to life only underlines the fact that A Year in London is sad proof that good intentions alone are never enough.
Cast: Melanie Liburd, Nina Pons, Matteo Bassi, Carlotta Morelli, Clementina Aliberti, Nagaieh Dad, Ralph Palka, Shaun Ramos, Sutara Gayle, Nando Irene, Karin Giegerich, Harry Jardine, Ian Chance.
Dir Flaminia Graziadei, Pro Flaminia Graziadei, Andrea Maffini, Valentina Quarantini and Marcoluca Cattaneo, Story and Screenplay Flaminia Graziadei and Laura Jane Swain, Ph Francesca Ciccone, Pro Des Rebecca Morton, Ed Giuliana Sarli, Music Riccardo Di Fiandra, Daniele Di Pentima and M_Side Collective, Costumes Alessandra Carta.
LonRom Film Production/Rain Dogs/Orange Pictures-Miracle/LonRom Films.
90 mins. UK. 2026. UK Rel: 17 July 2026. Cert. 15.
