REVIEW | The Material World: Silvio Soldini’s “Days and Clouds”

But at other times, the movie squanders chances for real-life resonance by focusing on underlined and too easily anticipated moments of reckoning (i.e., Michele being spotted performing a menial temp job by Alice) while letting escape numerous instances that might be mined for more nuance.  For so much emphasis being placed on the Oliveris’ attempts to keep up appearances, for example, encounters with friends provide scant illumination into the characters or their milieu, though surely the situation—which entails not only the selling off of the house and skipping out on social functions but also a steady movement of the couple into the working class which once served them—sends tremors through the well-to-do circles in which they run.

A compelling narrative strand arises out of this downward mobility as Michele starts taking on renovation gigs around the apartment building in which he and Elsa now live, along with two of his former employees.  His apparent gratification with the work, and subsequent depression upon being left behind when his new compatriots find steadier jobs, takes “Days and Clouds” in an intriguing direction.  But Soldini (also co-scripter) can’t help himself; instead of exploring this further, he packs the narrative with contrived moments which lead Michele to abruptly adopt a beatific countenance as he discovers What Really Matters:  Family and Love. 

(Caution:  spoilers ahead).

This, after a fight with Elsa sends him to Alice’s apartment. Forced to accept the hospitality of the girl’s boyfriend—his disapproval of whom has been the source of constant arguments between father and daughter throughout—Michele discovers that, hey, the guy isn’t so bad after all.  After sharing a similarly schematic moment with his own father, Michele naturally makes his way back to Elsa.  As in his earlier middlebrow art-house crowd-pleaser, “Bread and Tulips,” where a discontented housewife’s abandonment of her family is met with uncomplicated celebration come the conclusion, Soldini again funnels his thorny story down to the simplistic moral that love saves the day.  Whereas such an ending in “Bread and Tulips” can at least be dismissed as of a piece with its silly, light-hearted approach, the same pat and sentimental summation applied here smacks falsely when rubbed up against the tough times “Days and Clouds” sometimes seriously portrays.

[Kristi Mitsuda is a Reverse Shot