GOD WILLING
PG, 87 minutes, now screening
Director: Edoardo Maria Falcone
Stars: Marco Giallini, Alessandro Gassman, Laura Morante
★★½
Alessandro Gassman, left, and Marco Giallini share different philosophies in God Willing.Credit: Claudio Iannone
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Tommaso (Marco Giallini), the rigorous Roman doctor at the centre of this pleasant if less than taxing Italian comedy, has no need for a higher power – he's happy answering to himself. "Miracles don't exist," he tells the thankful family of a patient, "I'm an excellent surgeon." His faith in reason allows him to belittle his medical staff and roll his eyes at the concerns of his family.
When his son, medical student Andrea (Enrico Oetiker), schedules an important family announcement, Tommaso counsels his wife, Carla (Laura Morante), that they will be supportive of their son's homosexuality. But the haughty medico is aghast when Andrea explains that he's actually throwing in his studies to pursue spiritual satisfaction by becoming a Catholic priest. Like the wafer at holy mass, it's too much for his atheist dad to swallow.
A box-office hit in Italy, Edoardo Maria Falcone's directorial debut follows Tommaso's misguided efforts to "save" his child, which centre on discrediting his collared mentor, Don Pietro (Alessandro Gassman), a criminal turned hip man of God who wears trainers and preaches at night. He poses, without preparation, as a put-upon everyman worn down by life named Mauro, planning to test Pietro's Christian charity.
Naturally, this is turned around on Tommaso, who must rope in those he normally dismisses to create Mauro's grim existence when Pietro diligently comes to visit. A plan gone awry is a traditional screen farce, but God Willing never builds up the comic energy to sustain such an approach; the schemes peter out before they can attain a lunatic silliness.
The story focuses on Tommaso's reaction, but there's under-observed potential in the impact it has on those closest to him. Her son's change brings into focus Carla's own unhappiness with her rigid spouse, while their vapid daughter, Bianca (Ilaria Spada), ditches consumerism for Christianity, even if she prefers to binge-watch religious epics rather than reading the Gospels as Andrea suggests.
The film, like Falcone's direction, favours wry observations, proving content to let Tommaso and Pietro share their differing philosophies without ever testing the divide. The latter believes and the former doesn't, but there's no situating of the Catholic Church in contemporary Italian life to give some social structure to their tentative clash of beliefs.
It's not so much organised religion that Tommaso is opposed to here as his own bullheadedness. As such it is his transformation, interrupted by the sitcom-like interjections of his son-in-law Gianni (Edoardo Pesce), which becomes the film's focus. Any philosophical heavy lifting is avoided but that also means the humour lacks suggestive bite. In this match-up, the fix is in.