Still Time (Netflix, 2023)
Still Time (Original title: Era Ora) is a thoughtful comedy drama about a forty-something man who works too hard and loses sight of the important things in life.
This Italian movie wants to teach us a valuable life lesson: spend time with the people you love or someday they may not be there when you want them to be.
Written by Alessandro Aronadio and Renato Sannio and directed by Aronadio, it has a pretty good concept that could easily be remade in other countries.
Dante (Edoardo Leo) is a workaholic who seems to have it all: good job, nice house, enough friends to have a surprise birthday party, thrown by his lovely girlfriend called Alice (Barbara Ronchi).
But when he wakes up the next morning it is like Groundhog Day in reverse: again, it is his birthday and yes, he is another year older. Oh, and Alice is pregnant.
Naturally, Dante freaks out. Then he goes back to bed. When he wakes up he is another year older and their child is now some months old.
At first the time jumps require some suspension of disbelief, but after that the metaphorical message is clear: Dante is, like so many people, so absorbed by his work, that he is never really there for his family.
So he runs the risk of losing Alice and his daughter Galadriel - it seems likes Alice chose the name as she is a Lord of the Rings-fanatic.
The years rush by, but there is ‘still time’ to make things work.
Era Ora is a decent movie, even though I always find it slightly ironic when a movie tells us to take it easy, cause the movie business is simply not a business where you can ever afford to take it easy. But it doesn’t make its message less meaningful.
Lead actor Leo is convincing as the rugged Dante, who copes as best as he can with the unusual hand he is dealt by life, while Ronchi is quite charming and vivacious as the love of his life.
Visually, Still Time looks like a handsome tv-movie and that’s fine, as this is the kind of movie that works well in a home setting.
I also like the fact that the movie tells its story in 90 minutes and doesn’t overstay its welcome, because, as you know by now, time is very much of the essence.