Ogni maledetto Natale

"Ogni maledetto Natale" (Every Damned Christmas) is a sentimental and satirical comedy, a film written and directed with the freedom we've always had, attempting to tackle a broader, larger theme. And to completely overturn it. Christmas, which should be a moment of harmony, peace, and family cohesion, is here portrayed as an anthropological nightmare, the origin of all the discomforts of that period, a holiday that stresses and exhausts people since time immemorial. At Christmas, the days are shorter, darker, colder. And man has always reacted to the fear of this darkness with a frenzy of lights, chaos, exasperations, parties, and sacrifices. Even today, Christmas is this: a collective madness in which families have superpowers and want to be gratified and glorified, showering you with all the expectations that are not truly yours.

So we took the most beautiful thing in the world – two hopeful young people who truly love each other – and made them collide with Christmas. This is the question the film poses: Can love resist Christmas? Can love survive Christmas? Because the nightmare of Christmas is the test to be overcome for these two poor unfortunates whose only unforgivable sin is being young and free.

The two families are two extremes: the Colardos are a family of creatures emerged from the earth, in an imaginary Tuscia, who seem to fight against the darkness; the second, the Marinelli Lops, is a family of billionaires in a splendid palace in the center of Rome, but out of touch with the world. And both families are played by the same group of actors, telling us how, at Christmas, all families are monstrously alike.

The two young people are Massimo and Giulia, respectively Alessandro Cattelan and Alessandra Mastronardi. They won the roles with formidable auditions, and in the film, they surpassed themselves, reaching a level of skill that left us astonished.

As in Boris, the poetic of vexation continues: our two young protagonists are psychologically (and not only) massacred by the monstrous characters of their respective families, masterfully played by Francesco Pannofino and Laura Morante, by Corrado Guzzanti, Valerio Mastandrea, Marco Giallini, Caterina Guzzanti, Andrea Sartoretti, Stefano Fresi, and Franco Ravera.

A formidable cast for a crazy, plural comedy that stages the madness of this paradoxical and extreme holiday, which, as it approaches, makes us want to change countries.