Nanni Moretti’s characters have united and yet are falling apart again. There are two couples and new families in the making. But what if you long for something else? What if an unexpected affair suddenly develops between these characters that throws everything into disarray? This time, the Palme d’Or winner (2001 for “My Son’s Room”) is exploring a collection of short stories by Eshkol Nevo together with his co-authors Federica Pontremoli and Valia Santella. The Israeli writer’s work served Moretti as the basis for his film “Three Floors”. For “It Will Happen Tonight,” various individual parts of Nevo’s short stories were taken and put together to form a new story.
At the center are the bookseller Matteo (Louis Garrel) and the actress Greta (Jasmine Trinca). In the first few minutes of the film, both are at the beginning of a new phase in their lives, but then everything turns out differently. Matteo is abandoned by his Scandinavian partner and their child. You are dreading moving to Italy. At the airport she doesn’t dare cross the threshold. Now Matteo meets Greta at a tennis match. He falls in love with her: on her wedding day of all days. Even years later, the unfortunate man still thinks about the encounter until the two meet again by chance…
No one will soon forget this mother-in-law!
So do they find each other or don’t they find each other? That’s the question that structures “It Will Happen Tonight.” To some, this may seem a bit sparse and trite to fill 103 minutes with such a cliché plot. The film humanizes from one scene to the next, while the plot spans almost two decades. Sometimes you think you’re watching a daily soap when you follow the characters and their relatives through everyday life with all its ups and downs.
This is not meant to be disrespectful at all! Moretti, Pontremoli and Santella have created a fantastic script with many memorable moments. Also when it comes to the bitter humor! “It Will Happen Tonight” begins with a highly unpleasant sequence. There Matteo and his pregnant girlfriend Thea (Melina Åkerman Kvie) are sitting in a sauna with Matteo’s mother. Now the father-to-be is supposed to interpret how his partner is insulted and humiliated by the grumpy mother-in-law.
Matteo (Louis Garrel) and Greta (Jasmine Trinca) are obviously meant for each other, but life keeps getting in the way.
But then there are always wonderfully dreamy, almost a little surreal scenes, of which the film could actually do with a lot more. “It Will Happen Tonight” is ultimately also a film about imagination, about visions of how life could turn out if you made this or that decision differently, if you met each other in a more appropriate moment or part of your own biography. The tennis game between Matteo and Greta is embellished twice, expanded upon and transformed through the lens of fiction and imagination. When the bride swings the tennis racket while you have to strain to carry her train behind her in the best slapstick style, that’s just a funny highlight in the film.
Another encounter between the lovers culminates in a shocking moment: Greta, who has just come from a film shoot, looks for her daughter in a panic before tearing her mask off in shreds. The dissembling and masking becomes unbearable for some of the characters. This is also a recurring motif in the film. And Nanni Moretti’s cinema is so fond of the exuberant feelings that it also returns to musical and dance film traditions.
A musical number with the Rolling Stones
For “She’s A Rainbow” a dance choreography begins in the apartment and finally on the street. This song becomes a hymn to what constantly passes by the characters. Three long jumps in time divide the film and continually shed new light on the point at which the characters are at the moment. Why do you find it so difficult to live out your affair? Do they even want to destroy their respective order? But what is this order worth if it only exists out of a sense of duty anyway? These are very archetypal romantic conflicts that the film deals with. But he shows such timing in the comedy and tragedy that you sit there and would actually like to watch the whole thing for longer. This is mainly due to his talent for figure drawing. There are roles that only appear for a few minutes, including the aforementioned mother-in-law, who steals the show.
But they are so vividly and distinctively outlined in just a few scenes and lines and then played with such nuance that “It Will Happen Tonight” simply becomes a fantastic ensemble film. These small and large family and relationship dramas are not just about love. Dying also comes to mind, such as the last trip with the sick father (Hippolyte Girardot) to a Bruce Springsteen concert. The journey there and the father’s unexpected seduction are comedy gold in themselves, before the film takes on a thoughtful tone again. At one point it’s about how shortly before death the smell of people disappears. “It Will Happen Tonight” doesn’t have to worry about that. It smells and smells and doesn’t stop.
Conclusion: Two lovers who can’t really find each other even after years: Nanni Moretti’s new film works with well-known material. “It Will Happen Tonight” is filled with such interesting characters and so many strong dialogues and scenes that you are only too happy to be carried away by this hopeless romance.
We saw It Will Happen Tonight at the Venice Film Festival, where it had its world premiere as part of the official competition.