Bursting onto the scene with his debut Short Skin (LIFF15), an offbeat coming-of-age sex comedy that won a Special Mention at the 2014 Venice Film Festival, idiosyncratic Italian director Duccio Chiarini returns with his sophomore feature, The Guest. The film follows the misadventures of near-40 Guido, played dopey-ishly by Daniele Parisi, an academic forever preparing a book on Italo Calvino.
His quiet life is shaken on a winter’s afternoon, when an accident in bed sends his relationship with his girlfriend Chiara into disarray. As they head to the pharmacy to buy the morning-after pill, Guido suggests that she shouldn’t take it and Chiara has no choice but to confess her growing doubts about their relationship.
Unable to be alone, he asks his family and friends to put him up and so navigates the perilous waters of moving from one couch to the next, playing witness to their everyday lives and their various romantic entanglements from a unique perspective; that of the guest. Premiering at the Locarno Film Festival in the popular Piazza Grande slot, The Guest charmingly tackles the complexity of relationships and how pain can bring about a chance for new beginnings.
Tuesday 11th September
94 min
M
Film Festival
