The Last One for the Road

Two drifters in their fifties, Carlobianchi and Doriano, live by one obsession: one more last drink. Driving from bar to bar one night, they run into Giulio, an architecture student. He is shy, orderly and has his life already planned. The night he spends with these two changes him. It is a road movie across the Veneto plain, moving at the speed a hangover clears. What interests the story is not friendship but geography: endless flatness, industrial estates, lit petrol stations and settlements with no name between two large cities. Sossai has said he wanted to tell it in the language of Italian comedy. Francesco Sossai directed and co-wrote with Adriano Candiago, his first feature. Filippo Scotti plays Giulio, Sergio Romano plays Doriano and Pierpaolo Capovilla plays Carlobianchi, with Roberto Citran and Andrea Pennacchi in the cast. It screened in Un Certain Regard at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Who it is for: anyone who likes provincial Italy and road movies confined to one night. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for events. The story is loose, the two men's own histories barely open up, and the film settles for implying Giulio's change rather than stating it.