God Willing – a movie review by Roz Tarszisz
It’s not that often you get a good laugh at the movies. First time director/writer Eduardo Falcone provides plenty of laughs but it’s nicely calibrated and not slapstick, well perhaps only a little.
Tomasso (Marco Giallini) is an arrogant heart doctor with complete belief in himself. He is an atheist and regards himself as a liberal but is rude and obnoxious to his family and medical team.
As he has been behaving rather strangely, his family expect son Andrea (Enrico Oetiker) to come out as gay. Instead , he announces he is giving up his medical studies to become a priest. They are stunned and aghast, particularly Tomasso who was prepared for a gay son, but not a priestly one.
Tomasso stealthily does some research and discovers Andrea is sneaking out at night to listen to Father Pietro (Alessandro Gassman), a charismatic priest, who make sense of religion and speaks a language young people can relate to.
It’s all systems go as Tomasso enlists the aid of his despised son-in-law Gianni (Edoardo Pesce) to find a way to discredit the priest by engaging in a ridiculous charade. When Tomasso’s deception is discovered by Pietro, the plot fleshes out and the two men have some delightful interaction as the surgeon pays for his deception.
The performances are all good– although I found it strange that Tomasso’s ditzy married daughter Bianca (Ilaria Spada) would not know the story of Jesus – but then that’s all part of the fun. Carla (Laura Morante), Tomasso’s wife is unhappy with her life and a husband who ignores her but things hot up when she reverts to her youth and gets involved in a student protest.
Pietro has a sense of humour. As he explains to Tomasso, he came to the priesthood late in life and jokes that “working on Sundays is a pain”. He works his charm on the cynical surgeon and you know the writer/director has hit the spot when you start to care about the outcome.
A big hit in Italy, God Willing shows it is possible to make positive changes while learning to appreciate what is important.
3.5/5 Released June 2 Rated PG 87 mins 2015
In Italian with subtitles
Starring Marco Giallini, Alessandro Gassman, Laura Morante, Ilaria Spada, Edoardo Pesce
Directed by Eduaordo Falcone
Written by Edoardo Falcone, Marco Martani
