Nostalgia (2022, Mario Martone) (Patreon)

38/100

My first Martone experience, though his career stretches back three decades (including one previous Cannes Competition berth, way back in 1995). I'm not necessarily averse to seeing more—Nostalgia demonstrates a practiced eye, particularly early on when protagonist Felice (The Traitor's Pierfrancesco Favino) spends a lot of time just wandering the streets of Naples, registering what's changed and what hasn't over the 40 years since he moved away. We keep getting hints that he left for a reason, though, and the plot that eventually kicks in—Felice wants to come home permanently, which doesn't sit well with the childhood buddy, now a ruthless and feared Camorra boss, who knows that Felice witnessed a murder he committed when they were teenagers—is predicated upon loyalty that it's hard to believe anyone would legitimately feel in these circumstances. (Of the friends I haven't communicated with since the '80s, there are exactly zero to whom I still have any allegiance at all, much less an allegiance so strong that I'm willing to overlook homicides past and present.) Whether Martone's paying intentional homage to On the Waterfront isn't clear to me, but that's all I could think about whenever a street-smart priest shows up to serve as Felice's prodding conscience, and the comparison does Nostalgia no favors (especially since that's my least favorite part of Waterfront). Still, I was mostly just underwhelmed until the film's last ~20 minutes, which are so actively insulting to any viewer with an ounce of intelligence that I got angry. Imagine the end of The Sopranos, except there's no ambiguity at all and instead of a single perversely mundane diner scene we get a whole lengthy montage of everything going right for Tony in every aspect of his life, intercut with ominous shots of Members Only following him around and watching him, and also we know exactly who Members Only is and that he kills people for a living and has every incentive to kill Tony. Nothing to do but impatiently wait for it to happen and get more and more peeved at the useless "things are goin' great!" bullshit. So maybe think of this more as a 45-ish rating that got lowered in a fit of pique.