Weekly visions - week 36, 2026

Ratatouille, directed by Brad Bird, co-directed by Jan Pinkava, written by Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava and Jim Capobianco, US, 2007 - ⭐⭐⭐½

Thanks to its very simple premise - a gourmet rat becoming the shadow cook of one of Paris’ most successful restaurants - this film has left a mark on society’s general culture more than many Pixar successes (also see: Raccacoonie), so it felt almost redundant to rewatch it, even after almost twenty years since its release.
There was so much that I didn’t remember (i.e.: everything aside from the aforementioned premise, and the final denouement). There was so much in general.

One can feel the superposition of two creative minds - Pinkava, who started the project but left the company after disagreements on the direction it would take, and The Iron Giant’s Bird, who took over: the contrast between a simple, inspirational premise (anything related to cooking, Remy and food critic Ego), and the overstuffing with conflicts (Linguini/Skinner, Linguini/Colette, even an awkward Linguini/Remy moment) for comedy, plot reasons and to extend the running time.

Most of this second element feels like a homage to another American caricature of French life, with both Gusteau’s name and Linguini’s physical comedy echoing Inspector Clouseau, and Skinner’s frustration bringing him to the verge of madness almost to Commissioner Dreyfus levels.

French accents are, of course, all over the place, and lines such as ‘We hate to be rude, but we are French and it’s dinner time’ sound a bit rude themselves.

The script, cleverly, ends with a critique of critics, meant to leave reviewers with ‘food for thought’: We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.
It’s another component that pursues a meaning of the film that’s about art in general (already suggested by the ‘anyone can cook’ motto and the ‘difficult second soup’ Linguini has to prepare to prove the first successful recipe wasn’t a lucky accident), but I’m not sure how it all fits together.

This film is so far from being the simple, genuine recipe that Remy’s ratatouille is supposed to be.

Nine to Five, directed by Colin Higgins, co-written with Patricia Resnick, US, 1980 - ⭐⭐⭐½

I must have watched this film on TV in the eighties, although I was definitely more familiar with the TV series. I haven’t known Jeffrey Tambor’s name until Arrested Development years later, but I’ve always recognised him as the first Mr. Hart.
I have also been for a long time under the false certainty that, while two of the three actresses had definitely changed faces, Dolly Parton was both in the show and in the film. I think I’m a little justified about that, given that Doralee was played by Parton’s sister on TV.

I don’t know whether this sitcom imprinting affected my enjoyment of the film, which felt to me affected by pacing choices that make it feel more like a few episodes of a show joined together than a coherent story.

Not that the film wasn’t a fun experience, but the plotting felt so weird: a lot of time is spent setting up elements for a later payoff, until at some point the whole film stops to present the three leading ladies (Parton, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda are all in great form) bonding over revenge fantasies. It’s a long stretch of the film that also turns out to be setup for later events, but it’s enacted a silly way that feels out of place in a film (except maybe something deliberately silly like Wayne’s World).
The second act starts as great fun, but it also ends up being an elaborate plot device to move the story where it actually wants to go, progressively losing steam until a farcical ending that plays too lighthearted to be fully satisfying.

La stanza del figlio / The Son’s Room, directed by Nanni Moretti, co-written with Linda Ferri and Heidrun Schleef, Italy, 2001 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (rating unchanged)

Long-time readers might recall that at the beginning of this year I started a full retrospective of Moretti’s directorial career, but that came to a halt when I started postponing my rewatch of the next film: I needed a safe state of mind to address the emotional weight of La stanza del figlio.

We left Moretti in the 1996 autobiographical Aprile, dealing with the birth of his first son and adopting the real-life role of a father.
Five years later, it seems that the author’s doubts and fears have not relaxed, as he imagines (with the collaboration of two women screenwriters) the feelings of a family (himself and Bianca’s Laura Morante as the parents, and debuting Jasmine Trinca as the daughter) losing a teenage son.

It is - for what I can imagine - a perfectly realistic depiction of grief and guilt, not only for Moretti’s Giovanni - a disillusioned psychiatrist - but also for his family, each dealing with their loss in a different way.
But what struck me, both on first viewing and in this rewatch, is the perfect way the three screenwriters manage to conclude the story. An encouragement to look forward, even in the darkest of moments.

Together with Morante, from Bianca returns also one of my favourite songs, Insieme a te non ci sto più, while many familiar faces also return, first of all Silvio Orlando from Palombella Rossa and Aprile.

The Mandalorian and Grogu, directed by Jon Favreau, co-written with Dave Filoni and Noah Kloor, US, 2026 - ⭐½

Speaking of TV shows’ episodes glued together to form a ‘film’: the latest ‘Star Wars’ (quotes required) film has nothing of the saga we used to know and love, and a lot of the episodic experience having as protagonists a mostly-faceless bounty hunter and a cute puppet (experience which, to be honest, we also used to know and love).

But while in the show our two main characters met humans every week, this ‘movie’ is populated almost exclusively with computer generated, non-human creatures. More irritating than the un-cinematic plot - clearly composed of two different halves - is the fact that there are very few people on-screen: Sigourney Weaver is there for a total time of maybe ten minutes (the best part of which was in the trailer), official-lead Pedro Pascal shows his moustache for another five?

The story is about our favourite Mandalorian (and his little green companion) taking on a job that consists of rescuing Jabba the Hutt’s son (alright), Rotta, and bringing him back to his people. But what if things are not so clear-cut, and the bounty hunter starts having opinions on the morality of his mission?

The rest is Hutts and Anzellans that don’t look or sound human (Jeremy Allen White and Shirley Henderson are there, under layers of voice processing), and the familiar voice, strangely recognisable under computer-generated thick eyebrows, of a beloved filmmaker that doesn’t think superhero films are real cinema, but somehow blesses this patchwork with his presence.

It’s worth noting that the main reason why I disliked this so much is exactly what Empire’s Ben Travis praises as one of the film’s distinctive features.

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun, US, 2026 - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

As a middle-aged straight man, I appreciated but didn’t really connect with director Schoenbrun’s previous works. This film, instead, is fully relatable as a tale of sexual awakening that can apply to anyone regardless of personal inclinations and preferences.
Then there’s the death, or better, Little Death, la petite mort, a simple idea that sparks the starting point for the whole film and allows the author to reframe/appropriate a number of slasher tropes.

If a plot synopsis is needed: Sundance-sensation filmmaker Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is tasked with rebooting the Camp Miasma slasher franchise, and travels to a remote location to try to convince Billy, the reclusive Final Girl from the original Camp Miasma movie (Gillian Anderson), to cameo in the new film.
It turns out that Billy might not want to appear in films, but maintains a very personal relationship with the series, and that the franchise killer, Little Death, might not be completely fictional.

Schoenbrun put a lot of elements in the film, and I suspect the level of enjoyment may be linked to how much one cares about them fitting together.
Me, I’m all about a good idea that expresses a new(ish) point of view, and in that sense, I can forgive, or even enjoy, the detours through a light Hollywood satire. And the not-exactly-original story of a person finding a way to liberate their inhibitions and desire.

It’s a tale as old as The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and horror fans must be warned that there is as much actual horror here as there is in the Brad and Janet adventure.
There are deaths, but they are portrayed in a joyous way (again, in service of the original idea) - except maybe for one striking sequence centred on Little Death themselves (I Saw the TV Glow’s co-lead Jack Haven).
The attractiveness for a horror fan is more cerebral, in the reinterpretation of the Friday the 13th and Sleepaway Camp elements.

Anderson is exceptional in her Norma-Desmond-aware role, a bit as if her Sex Education character had gone slightly mad, and Einbinder (whom I didn’t know at all) is perfect as the clever young woman who still doesn’t know how to love herself.

I’m not sure why the word Miasma is pronounced in two different ways depending on the character, but it was slightly grating for me. I guess it’s another way to point out the subjectivity of human - and sexual - experience.

I think I will like this even more on a second watch. Anyway my living room won’t be worse than the tiny, uncomfortable screen in my multiplex this film was relegated to (the fact we were five people in total may be either the cause or the consequence of this choice).

As I often do, I’d recommend reading Chuck Jordan’s analyses of this film.

Giulietta degli spiriti / Juliet of the Spirits, directed by Federico Fellini, co-written with Tullio Pinelli, Ennio Flaiano and Brunello Rondi, Italy, 1965 - ⭐⭐⭐½

In the last few years it has become summer Holiday tradition for me to spend three days in Rimini: the town’s name has been, for my whole life, synonymous with avoid-at-all-cost loudness, noisy beaches, excessive nightlife and summer-flings-with-foreign-tourists - so I can hardly believe (and my friends concur) that, every year, this place is now my oasis for a few days of total relaxation induced by good food, walks, sleep and watching films in an air-conditioned hotel room.

One of the reasons I went there the first time is that Rimini was the birthplace of Federico Fellini. This year I decided to visit again the museum dedicated to the 4-time Academy-Award-winning director, to be fascinated once again by his personality: his admiration for Pinocchio, his sketches logging his bizarre dreams, his passion for Edgar Allan Poe and the occult (side note: these last weeks I also rewatched Mike Flanagan’s The Fall of the House of Usher, still loved it).

This last aspect made me want to revisit (after at least fifteen years) one of the few Fellini films I know (shame on me), which I remembered as a surrealist, almost horror, experience.

It’s the story of Giulietta (Giulietta Masina), a woman living an affluent life in an isolated villa, with two servants and a husband that’s often away for work. Between one party and another, her contentedness is disturbed by a séance and a visit to a medium, both delivering strange messages that instil the doubt that her husband’s absences might not all be of the professional kind, and possibly suggest she should allow herself one temptation or two. Her eccentric and sexually liberated neighbour Suzy (Sandra Milo) is happy to help.

For most of its running time, the film focuses on eccentric characters and settings (Suzy’s house reminded me of the peculiar architecture of some surrealist artists’ residences, while Giulietta’s villa - almost certainly a Cinecittà set - looks at times like a miniature), and honestly I was a bit disappointed (with my memory) until in its last act it embraces the horror-ish atmospheres I remembered. This was Fellini’s first colour feature film, and I wonder whether its strong palette was an influence for the colourful atmospheres of the giallo genre a few years later.

It is a film about a woman that was written by four men, and overall Giulietta’s attitude feels like a man’s fantasy about the way a devoted wife should or would behave when faced with her husband’s potential cheating.

Of course, Masina was Fellini’s wife, and was probably aware of the fact that the director and Milo had (we know now) a long-lasting affair (especially considering that Milo played the mistress of the protagonist in 8½). One wonders how much self-awareness was put in this film.