Movies to see at the cinema this week (December 1-8)

The month of December opens with a new week of releases at the cinema. Many novelties arrive in Italian cinemas, from the intense direction of Andrea Pallaoro in Monica to the memories of Valeria Bruni Tedeschi in Forever Young up to the new Sony effort The Woman King or the comedy with Claudio Bisio Vicini di casa. Let’s find out all the plots and trailers of the films.

monica

Film by Andrea Pallaoro, with Trace Lysette, Patricia Clarkson, Emily Browning, Joshua Close and Adriana Barraza

After more than twenty years Monica returns to her native home in the Midwest to take care of her seriously ill mother. Here she finds her caregiver, her brother and sister-in-law, and it doesn’t take long for all the memories and pains of a deeply divided family to resurface and drift away for a reason never revealed.

Andrea Pallaora skillfully narrates a character who collects and embodies some of the strongest and most common existential themes of the human condition, from separation to abandonment to bonding and forgiveness.

Monica: the intimate and delicate portrait of a relationship cared for by the soothing power of time

Forever Young

Film by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, with Louis Garrel, Nadia Tereszkiewicz and Micha Lescot

Paris, 1986. Stella, Etienne and Adèle have been admitted to the prestigious acting school of the Théâtre des Amandiers and, fueled by the fire of their twenties and a passion for acting, they are living their youth to the fullest. The whirlwind of new loves, of great changes, but also the specter of the first tragedies of the 1980s, in which AIDS and drugs are increasingly taking hold, hangs over them.
Presented in competition at the Cannes Film Festival 2022, the new film directed by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi is a clear and intense autobiographical journey made of nostalgia towards the times of light-heartedness, freedom and the discovery of emotions, but also of the fragility and difficulties before carve out a space in the world and in acting.

Forever Young: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi talks about burning youth

The Woman King

Film by Gina Prince-Bythewood, with Viola Davis, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Lashana Lynch, Sheila Atim and John Boyega

In the 1800s, the Agojie, an all-female warrior group known for their great skill and ferocity, ruled the Kingdom of Dahomey in West Africa, now Benin. General Nanisca was in charge of training the new generation of recruits and preparing them for a life of war to drive out any enemy from their land.

Inspired by true events in Africa between the 18th and 19th centuries, The Woman King tells the story of General Nanisca (played by Academy Award winner Viola Davis) to show a kingdom’s fierce battle for its way of life in perpetual danger.

The Woman King, Viola Davis leads the epic of the Agojie

Neighbors

Film by Paolo Costella, with Claudio Bisio, Vittoria Puccini, Vinicio Marchioni, Valentina Lodovini

Giulio and Federica have been married for many years and their relationship is now running out. Silence reigns in their Roman apartment: the two barely speak to each other and, when it happens, they only do it to discuss or quarrel. Everything changes when they are invited to dinner by their new neighbors Salvatore and Lucia, a close-knit and passionate couple who will make them a proposal destined to change their evening and their lifestyle.

Remake of the 2020 Spanish film Sentimental, the new comedy directed by Paolo Costella uses the dynamics of the two-pair to shuffle the cards.

Neighbors, a mostly insipid aphrodisiac comedy

Orlando

Film by Daniele Vicari, with Michele Placido, Angelica Kazankova, Fabrizio Rongione, Denis Mpunga and Christelle Cornil

The story, indeed, the modern fairy tale of an old man and a little girl. Orlando and Lyse unknowingly find themselves having to make the same journey: face the present, be it in a small village in the open countryside or in a European metropolis like Brussels.

“Orlando” with Michele Placido: the meeting of different worlds between a grandfather and a granddaughter

The other exits

Unmissable for fans of the One Piece universe, the new film inspired by the homonymous manga written and illustrated by the master Eiichiro Oda, One Piece Film: Red. In addition to the world of animation, family reunion, the third chapter of Philippe De Chauveron’s hilarious saga Don’t marry my daughters, as well as Massimiliano D’Epiro’s first rule should also be mentioned. At the cinema also Nobody must know, while – for those who are already in the Christmas spirit with the arrival of December – a themed thriller is A silent and violent night.