Easy!

Bruno gives private lessons in Rome. He used to ghostwrite; he has long since lowered his expectations of everything. Then the mother of Luca, one of his fifteen year old students, tells him something: Luca is his son. She is leaving for six months of work in Africa, and the boy will be staying with him. Francesco Bruni directs, in his first feature. Until then he was known as a screenwriter, particularly for Paolo Virzì. The Italian title is Scialla!, Roman slang meaning roughly take it easy, let it go. The title is the subject: father and son do not speak the same language, one trying to teach Latin while the other raps. Fabrizio Bentivoglio plays Bruno. Filippo Scicchitano, in his first film, plays Luca; he was found in an open casting call. It screened in the Controcampo Italiano section at Venice and won that section's award, and Bruni went on to take first film prizes at both the Nastro d'Argento and the David di Donatello. Who it is for: viewers who like Italian father and son comedies, and anyone who wants to hear Rome talk in its own register. Who it is not for: the story ends more or less where you expect, and the film never takes a genuine risk.