Alaska

Fausto and Nadine meet in a hotel in Paris, both looking for something to hold on to: he is working as a waiter and wants to rise, she has never managed to build a life. What is between them stretches across years, and at each meeting one of them is somewhere else: prison, money, marriage, attempts to start again. Claudio Cupellini does not build a love story so much as an account of two people repeatedly finding each other at the wrong moment. Elio Germano and Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey lead. Because it covers such a long span there are hard jumps between sections and the story strains in places. The ending is neither a reunion nor a parting. Who it is for: viewers who like relationship stories told across long spans and Italian drama. Who it is not for: anyone wanting closure, which the film does not provide.