Writing with co-writer and co-producer Gianni Romoli, Ozpetek draws heavily on the his experience giving the public a profoundly imperfect film, far from its best titles and easily criticisable, for certain screenplay choices and for the accelerator heavily focused on the melody pedal. Yet at the same time New Olympus turns out to be a sincere, passionate work, hot and popular in the broadest sense of the word. Focusing on the two male protagonists, it doesn’t forget to leave it broad space to the female characters, who know how to leave an impression. As Luisa Ranieri, in the role of Titti cashier who deserves a spin-off: gorgeous, with eyebrows and a Mina hairstyle (brunette version) and a past yet to be discovered, she is the cashier who takes to heart the personal and romantic stories of those who regularly frequent her cinema, not just to enjoy a film.
Remarkable too Aurora Giovinazzo, in the role of an original character, little seen in Italian cinema: the inseparable companion of a lifetime, friend, accomplice and occasional lover, the soul sister from which the protagonist never separates. In the end Greta Scarano knows how to give life to the melancholic resilience of a wife who knows she is loved “lukewarmly” by a man who cannot forget the meeting that changed his life. Because this is exactly what Nuovo Olimpo aims to tell: the disarming force of chance encounters capable of turning an entire life upside down and remain imprinted in the mind, in the heart and in the sensuality that explodes by chance between strangers and that Ozpetek knows how to tell, embellished by the dreamy music of Andrea Guerra.
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