Venice 2024: Nonostante (Feeling Better)
VENICE
Opening the Orizzonti section of the 81st Venice Film Festival, Nonostante (Feeling Better), directed by and starring Valerio Mastandrea, offers a quiet and unassuming reflection on life, death, and the space in-between.
A man (Mastandrea) spends his days living peacefully in a hospital ward where he has been for some time, having found friendships and shelter in this protected environment, safe and free of worries and responsibilities. That is until a new patient (Dolores Fonzi) is admitted, upsetting his carefully achieved balance with her restlessness and impatience, forcing him to reconsider the possibility of accepting the full force – and consequences – of his emotions.
Mastandrea’s vision for this film makes the hospital ward an almost liminal space, where fears and regrets may coexist with hopes and resignation alike. Music is used to its fullest to underline the internal transformations of the characters as well as that of the spaces they inhabit, skillfully mixing the dreamlike score by Tóti Guðnason with classic Italian pop and international music.
Despite its attempt to move away from modern Italian film-making to embrace a different vision, relying heavily on near fantastical elements and winking at magical realism, the film never seems to fully lean into its whimsical side, returning time and again to classic narration patterns and tropes which leave the sense of unrealised potential. Even the mix in genres, moving between romantic comedy and drama, feels uneven and incomplete, as if the film itself were stuck in an in-between like its protagonists, never managing to fully take flight.
Mastandrea’s excellent performance goes a long way towards allowing deep empathy to develop between the audience and his unnamed character, ensuring that the more emotional moments hit the mark. Even coupled with a few excellent dream-like sequences and the carefully constructed ending, it cannot fully make up for the sense that this could have been a truly great film if it had only dared more instead of resorting back to what seemed like the safest choices.
Despite its flaws, it is a great effort and a pleasant watch, one best enjoyed knowing as little as possible about it to better savour the journey and the melancholic, nostalgic feeling that lingers after the credits have wrapped up.