A review of a wonderful new Italian film “There’s Still Tomorrow”

I was drawn to this film, partly because the central character is a working-class woman in a post-war Italian city (my mother was living in poverty in Naples at the time), partly because I love the work of the post-war Italian neo-realism movement (this movie is a kind of homage to that style of filmmaking), Part comedy, part drama, part a feminist critique of gender roles and violence against women, it is a triumph that has become one of the highest-grossing films of all time in its home country of Italy.

It borrows from the neo-realistic tradition by being set in Rome in the summer of 1946, by focusing on working-class characters struggling with poverty, and by being shot in black and white and partly on location in the Testaccio district of the capital. But it is a modern take of the neo-realistic movement with elements of fantasy and the alignment of images with the words of songs (not all contemporary). 

The outstanding success of the film owes so much to Paola Cortellisi who is known in Italy as a singer and as an actor and comedian, mainly on television. Here she is the director (first time), co-writer and leading actor, playing Delia who earns bits of money from a variety of menial jobs, does all the cooking and cleaning at home, and contrives to look after an abusive husband, three children and an aging father-in-law. By the end of the film, you’ll be in love with Delia, achingly wanting her happiness, but very unsure how she is likely to find it.