Francesco Sossai's The Last One for the Road is a trenchant tragicomic examination of perpetual inebriation and the tragicomic optimism of ageing boozers. Doriano and Carlobianchi are two middle-aged wasters who maintain a superhuman capacity for continuous daytime drinking while living hand-to-mouth on the fringes of petty criminality. They inhabit the luxurious vehicle they acquired with their share of a scam orchestrated by their associate Genio, who stole designer eyewear from the factory where he was employed and subsequently sold the merchandise to his accomplices at considerably reduced prices. Their perpetual hope is that elusive happiness or wisdom might materialise through further consumption.
The film operates simultaneously as a road movie, buddy picture, and shaggy-dog narrative that embraces infantilism without achieving genuine maturation. Doriano and Carlobianchi travel toward Venice anticipating a reunion with Genio, who fled the country to evade law enforcement and is now ostensibly returning. A catastrophic misunderstanding results in their missing him entirely. The cinematography offers an unsentimental perspective on Venice, featuring fleeting glimpses of the Santa Croce district and the prosaic Venice Treviso airport—Italy's equivalent of Luton. The narrative bookends with an identical deadpan gag wherein a character about to depart permanently proclaims indecipherable life advice.
During their inebriated wanderings, they encounter Giulio, an architecture student experiencing poignant, unrequited romantic attachment to a fellow student. The duo discern his emotional wound with characteristic shrewdness and subsequently accompany him to the Brion tomb near Treviso, a postmodernist funerary monument designed by Carlo Scarpa. The structure's distinctive concrete forms constitute a meditation on mortality. Whether Doriano and Carlobianchi actually facilitate Giulio's emotional recovery remains ambiguous, though his affection may not be as unrequited as initially presumed. The film premiered in UK and Irish cinemas on 10 July.