"Non ti pago" was aired on Rai 1 last night. The third and final chapter of the trilogy dedicated to Eduardo De Filippo by Sergio Castellitto and Edoardo De Angelis.
After the disappointing adaptations of Natale in casa Cupiello and Sabato, domenica e lunedì, which had aroused the ire of purists and fans of the great Neapolitan playwright, we expected a reaction, a rematch, a retaliation. Instead, we were faced with an involuntary farce, an involuntary parody, an involuntary caricature. Instead, it was a disaster waiting to happen.
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For those of us who love Eduardo De Filippo, the Great Master who was able to tell Naples to the Neapolitans, and he was able to explain Neapolitans in the world, see a comedy "redone" is already something that can start off with a prejudiced view. Aware of the fact that being able to It's impossible to do better than Eduardo.
I Don't Pay You and Other Films: Eduardo's Homage to the Theatre
More or less over the years, everyone has tried to pay homage to Eduardo's theatre. Some have even managed to create their own cult masterpieces , like "Marriage all'italiana", directed by another great of Italian cinema Vittorio De Sica and based on the play by Eduardo "Filumena Marturano" with Marcello Mastroianni e Sophia Lauren. Or "These ghosts" by Castellano played by Vittorio Gassman e Sophia LorenThe remake of "Saturday, Sunday and Monday" di Lina Wertmuller Luca De Filippo, Luciano De Crescenzo, Sophia Loren ed Enzo Cannavale.
A separate discussion instead for the Naples Millionaire 2.0 , aired just before Christmas and starring the very talented Massimiliano Gallo and the excellent Vanessa Scalera, who instead proved very careful not to deviate from the Eduardian spirit of the comedy both in terms of direction and interpretations of the characters, despite the changes and arrangements, which in any case certainly did not shine.
Instead the I do not pay you di Sergio Castellitto , aired yesterday evening, was the third attempt, after the first two made in previous years, to pay homage to Eduardo who however, perhaps due to limitations imposed by the production, lost their way.
There were few, indeed very few, moments in which we were able to truly immerse ourselves in this new reinterpretation: the parrot on Don Ferdinando's shoulder, the extravagant glasses of the two "dream hunters" and Don Saverio's painting.
I Don't Pay You: The Plot
The film, aired yesterday evening on Rai 1, told the story of Ferdinand Quagliolo (Castellitto), a lottery manager who dreams of winning an exorbitant sum, but sees the prize snatched away by his employee Mario Bertolini (Gianluca Di Gennaro), engaged to his daughter Stella (Pina Turco). The reason? The winning numbers were revealed to him in a dream by Ferdinando's deceased father, who however got confused about the address and knocked on the wrong door.
The plot, already thin and surreal in itself, has been emptied of all depth, irony, poetry, thanks to a banal screenplay, a flat direction, and over-the-top acting.
It must be said that Sergio Castellitto, who played all the main roles in the trilogy, is a very good actor, but his interpretation was not exactly up to par: he distorted the character of Ferdinando with grimaces, screams, exaggerated gestures, which have nothing to do with Eduardo's style.
As well as the other actors in the cast, including Maria Pia Calzone, Giovanni Esposito, Maurizio Casagrande, they did not do better, reducing the dialogues to a series of disconnected and forced jokes. The criticism is not to them, on the contrary they did everything possible to try to give a positive contribution.
But it wasn't enough, the project was a failure from the outset, failing miserably above all on the human side of Ferdinando Quagliuolo and his world in which the whole story takes place.
The film betrayed the spirit, the meaning, the message of Eduardo, who with I do not pay you he wanted to reflect on the relationship between chance and providence, between destiny and will, between dream and reality, between the sacred and the profane, between the comic and the tragic. The film transformed comedy into farce, drama into parody, poetry into caricature.
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