Francesco Sossai's new film The Last One for the Road is a tragicomedy about two ageing drinkers who refuse to grow up. Doriano and Carlobianchi are middle-aged men who spend their days amiably drunk, living hand-to-mouth on the fringes of petty crime. They live in a luxurious car they purchased with their share of a scam involving stolen designer glasses. Their friend Genio stole the glasses from the factory where he worked, and then sold them to his partners at knockdown prices. The film shows their endless optimism that one more drink will bring them happiness or wisdom.
This is a road movie and a buddy movie. Doriano and Carlobianchi are driving to Venice to meet Genio, who fled the country to escape the police and is now returning. However, a bizarre blunder causes them to miss him. The film presents an unsentimental view of Venice, focusing on the ordinary Santa Croce district and the unglamorous Venice Treviso airport, which the reviewer compares to Luton Airport in England. The story begins and ends with the same joke about someone shouting important life advice that is impossible to hear.
Along their journey, the pair meet Giulio, a young architecture student who is painfully in unrequited love with another student. They take him to visit the Brion tomb near Treviso, a postmodernist grave designed by Carlo Scarpa. The distinctive concrete structure is a meditation on death. Perhaps Doriano and Carlobianchi help heal Giulio's romantic pain, or perhaps his love was not as unrequited as he believed. The film opened in UK and Irish cinemas on 10 July.