There’s Still Tomorrow

The actress Paola Cortellesi makes her directorial debut with a deftly structured, heart-breaking dip into post-war Italian neorealism.

Roma horribilis: Paola Cortellesi

It’s so exciting when the unexpected happens. C’è ancora domani was the highest-grossing film in Italy last year (beating out Barbie and Oppenheimer), in spite of its bleak tale of domestic abuse. It was also shot in black-and-white and set in the grim period immediately following the Second World War when the country was in ruins and steeped in poverty. It hardly sounded like a commercial certainty. That it is being given a general release in the UK is even more surprising, as monochromatic subtitled period films are not a box-office given. And yet Vue is releasing it at 92 screens and while the figures are still to be published as we got to press, at my local multiplex it was the best performing title (per capita per screen) of the whole weekend.

There’s Still Tomorrow, to give it its resonant English title, marks the directorial debut of Paola Cortellesi, best known in Italy as a comic actress. She also co-scripts and takes the central role of Delia, the gaunt, baggy-eyed mother of three who juggles several jobs (repairing umbrellas, stitching hosiery, administering medical shots). On top of this, she is obliged to nurse and clean her contemptuous, bed-ridden father-in-law (Giorgio Colangeli) while succumbing to the routine thrashings dished out by her husband Ivano (Valerio Mastandrea).

The film opens on a scene of silence, on a house in slumber, when waking from his bed, Ivano dutifully slaps his wife hard in the face before getting up to scratch his backside. We then get a joyful song of optimism on the soundtrack ('Aprite le finestre'), as Delia throws open the windows to let in the spring sunshine as she goes about seeing to everybody’s needs. But even as the song continues, a dog urinating in front of one window suggests that there may well be irony at play. Delia’s young sons continually run riot (swearing as they go), the teenage Marcella stares dreamily into the distance and Delia receives a stream of criticism from her husband, whom she repeatedly forgives for his having fought in two wars.

All this could be pretty hard to take – Ken Loach would decline to spare us – were it not for the surreal touches of vaudeville, such as one beating acted out as a comic dance routine. As director, Cortellesi meticulously emulates the visual style of early Rossellini and De Sica – the film is exquisitely lit by Davide Leone – but embellishes the action with her own modern twists, not least the addition of Outkast’s hip hop anthem ‘Bombs Over Baghdad’. This filmmaker is firmly in control and she manages a fine juggling act of maintaining her story’s tragedy, humour, warmth and unpredictability.

At times it is heart-breaking, but it is also surprising, and even recalls the effervescent tone of Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist – and it is not going where we think it is. Vital clues are withheld (such as a mysterious note Delia receives in the post), while the presence of the American military police on the streets brings its own historical context (the time is specifically May of 1946). There is one magical moment when Delia finds an old photograph on the pavement of a black family and presents it to an African-American soldier (Yonv Joseph), and a rapport is born. But she is afraid to accept his charity and because of the language barrier she knows him only as “Willian” and he thinks she is called “Gotta-go”. Here, humanity is born, amongst the ruins of a country torn apart by war and misogyny.

Original title: C’è ancora domani.

JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

Cast: Paola Cortellesi, Valerio Mastandrea, Romana Maggiora Vergano, Emanuela Fanelli

Giorgio Colangeli, Vinicio Marchioni, Paola Tiziana Cruciani, Francesco Centorame, Raffaele Vannoli, Yonv Joseph. 

Dir Paola Cortellesi, Pro Lorenzo Gangarossa and Mario Gianani, Screenplay Paola Cortellesi, Furio Andreotti and Giulia Calenda, Ph Davide Leone, Pro Des Paola Comencini, Ed Valentina Mariani, Music Lele Marchitelli, Costumes Alberto Moretti. 

Wildside/Vision Distribution-Vue Entertainment.
117 mins. Italy. 2023. UK Rel: 26 April 2024. Cert. 15.