''The Salt of Life'' ( it,

Gianni e le donne ''The Salt of Life'' ( it, Gianni e le donne) is the second film from writer/director/actor Gianni Di Gregorio, who began his directorial career with 2008’s ''Mid-August Lunch''. Plot Gianni (Gianni Di Gregorio) is 60 and might as well be invisi ...

) is the second film from writer/director/actor Gianni Di Gregorio, who began his directorial career with 2008’s '' Mid-August Lunch''.

Plot

Gianni ( Gianni Di Gregorio) is 60 and might as well be invisible (except when others need something from him). Smothered by his mother (

Valeria De Franciscis Valeria De Franciscis (14 December 1915 – 9 February 2014) was an Italian actress. She is best known for her performance as Gianni's mother in ''The Salt of Life'', for which she received a nomination for the David di Donatello for Best Supporti ...

), ignored by his wife ( Elisabetta Piccolomini), and befriended (against his will) by his daughter's layabout boyfriend, he finds retirement to be not quite what he'd hoped for. He sets out to find himself a love life, to comic and charming effect.

Critical reception

The film has received widespread critical acclaim. The Guardian wrote: The Salt of Life "is packed with subtly observed details of behaviour and gesture of a kind we associate with Ealing comedy at its zenith, and an elaborate Chekhovian story is being told before we realise it". Los Angeles Times wrote: "rueful, funny and wise...a comedy not of errors but of the tiniest of missteps. A warm yet melancholy film of quiet yet inescapable charm, it has a feeling for character and personality that couldn't be more delicious".

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

wrote that the film "tells his story in an affectionate, low-key way, not as a smutty sex com but as a gentle look at a harmless man who realizes he has become invisible, except to people who need something from him". The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "The same, broad festival and arthouse audiences that gushed over Mid-August Lunch will eat up The Salt of Life, which resembles the first in tone but doesn't just cash in on a lucky formula. The added spice – more secondary characters, more melancholic chords – shows Di Gregorio's maturation as a filmmaker and despite the casual, vérité atmosphere, there's nothing arbitrary in this wistful ode to women by a man who's becoming invisible to them."

References

External links

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Interview with Gianni

The Salt of Life
2011 comedy films 2011 films 2010s Italian-language films Zeitgeist Films films Films directed by Gianni Di Gregorio Italian comedy films 2010s Italian films {{2010s-Italy-film-stub

Plot

Critical reception

See also

References

External links