The Life Ahead

A film set in Bari. Madame Rosa is old. She is Jewish, survived a camp, and worked the streets in her youth; now she looks after other women's children in her flat. Momo is twelve. He is Senegalese, an orphan, lives on the street and steals. They meet badly. The boy takes her bag at the market. The doctor who looks after Momo makes a proposal. He wants to leave the boy with Rosa for a few months and she agrees unwillingly. From there the film is a story of getting used to each other. Rules, quarrels, a job in a shop, a mosque, a prayer and a dentist. Momo starts selling drugs. Rosa's illness advances and she stays absent from herself for longer and longer. There is a room in the cellar. When she gets worse she goes down there and tells nobody why; the room is a habit left from the camp. What the narrative is interested in is not compassion but bargaining: neither side admits needing the other, and the film keeps that up to the end. In the last section there is a move to take Rosa to hospital. Momo prevents it, and the film's hardest decision is left to the child. The source is Romain Gary's novel; the book had been adapted for the screen before. Sophia Loren returned to a leading role with this film after more than a decade; her son directed. Sophia Loren, Ibrahima Gueye and Renato Carpentieri are in the cast. Edoardo Ponti directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes emotional, actor-centred drama. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a narrative open to surprise; the plot is predictable and the music keeps pointing at the feeling.