This was not bad. The title means The name of the son.
Betta has a husband, Sandro, and two children. She has her brother Paolo and her friend Claudio over for dinner. Paolo has lots of money and apparently their father was someone important.
Simona is not exactly your usual intellectual person, but she’s having success with the book she wrote, about people living in the part of Rome she knows so well. Paolo and Simona are about to have a baby, and he tells the others that he wants to call his baby son Benito.
This starts many discussions, arguments; Sandro is the angriest of all. Sandro soon understands that it was just a prank, Paolo is actually planning on calling him Emanuele like his politician father. Still, Claudio is the only one who knows the truth, and Paolo doesn’t want to tell the others.
Sandro, the one constantly on twitter that never helps his wife in anything, ever, let’s her run around like a slave, gets angrier by the minute. When Simona finally arrives, after her radio interview, Sandro lets it all out blaming her who knows nothing of what is going on and is quite taken aback. He calls her fascist, says her novel was written by someone else and she’s no writer, while he writes literary essays that are boring and only sold 400 copies. Things become worse and worse so Claudio insists and forces Paolo to admit the truth, that it was all a joke.
They all calm down, they sing together like they did as kids (and are even surprised that the children don’t go to sleep, how could they with all that noise just outside their door… and they’re called Pin and Scintilla, the poor souls).
Sandro apologises to Simona, but as the song ends they resume their previous attitudes. Sandro keeps typing on his phone totally ignoring his wife and then he sows discord: he calls Paolo self-centered, and reveals he has a nasty nickname for Claudio. Even the women now try to shut him up, so Claudio understands there’s something bad going on and wants to know what. Paolo calls him a “prugna”, which is a plum, but that seems almost positive, so maybe it’s prune, I’m not sure because I didn’t really understand it. The reason is because they’re all convinced he’s gay, so I don’t really get it. Anyway, he says he isn’t, that he’s in love with a woman, has been for some time. Only Simona knows about this, and it is not Betta, his dear friend. No, it’s Lucia, Betta’s mother. They’ve been a secret couple for ten years now. Simona got it by herself, without anyone telling her, but she didn’t judge. Paolo goes crazy about this, can’t accept it, even goes outside yelling. Simona gets angry because they’re so stuck up but then they act like children; she told Lucia she could tell them, that they’d understand, but Lucia was right in keeping it a secret. Simona knows a lot about Lucia because they talk, Lucia phones her from time to time, they chat and confide in each other. Lucia actually read her book, has even recognised the parts that she wrote herself from those that only had her input. Lucia told her that if she commits seriously to her books she can make it by herself without any help, and she’s doing it, she’s writing a new novel, about them.
Simona takes Paolo’s car, since she came in a taxi, and gives Claudio a ride, and the night ends.
Simona keeps researching them, their history and everything they talk about, to better understand everything. Then her water breaks and they all come together at the hospital, where a little baby girl is born… and so she’ll be called Lucia. And they’re all friends again.
Paolo - Alessandro Gassman
Claudio - Rocco Pappaleo
Betta - Valeria Golino
Sandro - Luigi Lo Cascio
Simona - Micaela Ramazzotti
Lucia - Manuela Mandracchia
Scintilla - Giulia Salerno
I looked on the internet for the actors’ names, because I only knew a couple, and the ending credits don’t show them. I hate this Italian thing. In the opening credits there are the names, but not what character they play.
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