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zedz wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2026 10:51 pm La Gradiva (Marine Atlan, France / Italy, 2026)
A third first film that effortlessly, confidently outdoes most seasoned directors. This one is already getting plenty of accolades, and they’re well-deserved. I suppose this is another teens-in-crisis film, but rather than flip out into something strange and wonderful, it simply follows a classical straight line to its conclusion. A class of French students visit Naples. There’s the usual extracurricular hijinks, the usual casual cruelties and tensions (the first section of the film could have been called Dicks on a Train), and the usual unlikely / reluctant bonding, but the writing and acting is so adept that characters continuously evolve and surprise or disappoint us with their behaviour, rather than with imposed ‘plot developments’.