Three farewells: a beautiful melodrama (review)
Isabel Coixet adapts a novel by Michela Murgia where an announced death does not prevent a life drive. A film led by the great Alba Rohrwacher, once again stunning.
This new feature film by Spanish filmmaker Isabel Coixet (My Life Without Me) is the adaptation of the latest autobiographical novel by the Italian Michela Murgia, the original title of which is Three bowls: rituals for a year of crisis (unpublished in France). The author, a star in Italy, recounts her ultimate desire for life, a shocking start haunted by death. Murgia died of cancer at the age of 51 in 2023. It all begins here with a separation between Marta (Alba Rohrwacher) and Antonio (Elio Germano) A farewell that is not really a farewell as these two are called to see each other again. Everything happens in a Rome far from mass tourism. Marta relearns solitude, embraces new energy before the revelation of her illness shakes her certainties.
However – and this is precisely the beauty of this story – this shaking is not seen as a tragedy where fate would break all creative energy but on the contrary offers an impulse. Marta does not cease to belong to the world of the living once the specter of her death lurks, she redoubles her desires, unexpected events, love… Isabel Coixet abandons all pathos without repressing the outpouring of feelings. The modesty, the humor, the finesse of the staging impose a gentleness that is certainly restless but also knows how to be generous and gracious. Above all, it’s the kind of film where you say to yourself that no one other than the chosen actress could play the part. “She is an extraordinary actress, with a paradoxical face: ancient, modern, German, Italian Renaissance…”, says Isabel Coixet about Alba Rohrwacher in an interview on the sidelines of the release of her film. No better.
By Isabel Coixet. With Alba Rohrwacher, Elio Germano, Galatea Bellugi… Duration: 2 hours. Released September 2
