The Salt of Life (2011)

Gianni is a retiree who has become invisible to most everyone around him. In response, he tries his best to generate some kind of extracurricular love life.

Director:

Gianni Di Gregorio

Writers:

Valerio Attanasio, Gianni Di Gregorio

Stars:

Gianni Di Gregorio, Valeria De Franciscis, Alfonso Santagata

5 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Gianni Di Gregorio	...	Giovanni Brandani detto Gianni
Valeria De Franciscis	...	La madre di Gianni (as Valeria De Franciscis Bendoni)
Alfonso Santagata	...	l'avvocato Alfonso
Elisabetta Piccolomini	...	La moglie di Gianni
Valeria Cavalli	...	Valeria (as Valéria Cavalli)
Aylin Prandi	...	Aylin
Kristina Cepraga	...	Kristina
Michelangelo Ciminale	...	Michelangelo
Teresa Di Gregorio	...	Teresa
Lilia Silvi	...	Lilia
Gabriella Sborgi	...	Gabriella
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Elisa Alessandro	...	Segretario notario
Cinzia Bernardini	...	Vigilessa
Giovanna Cau	...	Signore del poker
Tommaso Colucci	...	Cocktail acido

Storyline

Gianni is sixty. He is retired but has not become lazy for all that. In fact he is a helpful fellow who gives a hand to all those who need one: shopping for his wife, walking the pretty neighbor's dog, and so on. Everybody likes Gianni, but is it for the right reasons? Doesn't his wife profit by the situation (she still works so it is only logical that Gianni do all the chores)? Isn't he subject to the excruciating whims of his rich mother?... Sure, everybody LIKES Gianni, but who LOVES him? Agreed, being kind to them, he is the ladies pet, but he does not attract them anymore. That is why, when his macho lawyer friend Alfonso blames him for not having young mistresses "like every other senior Italian male", Gianni, who is beginning to ask himself questions about what it is like to become old, starts chasing dames...

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Plot Keywords:

italy | card game | lying on the sidewalk | watching television | cell phone | 

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Taglines:

Gianni is back & looking for love...

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Genres:

Comedy | Romance

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

Swiss censorship certificate #1008.258.

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Connections

Follows Mid-August Lunch (2008)

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Soundtracks

Here Comes Your Man
Lyrics and music by Frank Black
Performed by the Pixies
(1989)

User Reviews

Sweet-salt look at the invisibility of age vs. insouciance of youth

Lately I've come to appreciate small, intimate movies that are in the 'slice of life' style. This Italian gem I recently sampled is a worthy example.

The eponymous Gianni is a retiree in Rome, somewhere on the long end of middle-age. His wife still works, thus he is sent off on various domestic errands during working hours, and this he is content to do. Then there's his somewhat confused daughter and her equally shiftless boyfriend who has moved into their home. There's Gianni's rich, demanding mother who has him at her beck and call. And then there's his friend and peer Alfonso, a rakish lawyer who attempts to get Gianni off the straight and narrow and into the fast lane of late-age sexual/romantic dalliance.

Now this straight and narrow as it were, is very much Gianni's choice. It's just that he has reached a point where he is seemingly invisible to the young women around him. Invisible and inaudible. He is touchingly earnest in his realization, accepting it with a kind of shrugging melancholy. But he has the persistent Alfonso who keeps nudging him away from this acceptance; even if we don't know if Alfonso is actually successful with the young women himself.

And there are a few very beautiful women around poor Gianni. First, the downstairs neighbor, a hazel-eyed sprite who flirts with him relentlessly, turns out to have passed off her dog-walking duties on him. Then the identical blond twins, Alfonso's clients; Gianni's mother's caretaker; another woman who is an old flame, and yet another who is an old acquaintance: they make up the rolls as he shambles around amiably trying to see where he can get.

Read full review at http://devikamenon.blogspot.com/2016/06/foreign- movie-Friday-gianni-e-le-donne.html

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [Italy]

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Release Date:

11 February 2011 (Italy)

Also Known As:

The Salt of Life

Filming Locations:

Rome, Lazio, Italy

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$19,176, 4 March 2012

Gross USA:

$317,405

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$2,850,852

Company Credits

Production Co:

BiBi Film, Isaria Productions, Rai Cinema

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1