There’s Still Tomorrow

Director: Paola Cortellesi

11 June 2024

See

In 1940s Italy, Delia (Paola Corellesi) is the matriarch of a family, and trying to hold it together with both arms. Of all the things she has to handle should be helping her but are actually a hindrance. Her husband, Ivano (Valerio Mastandrea) is cruel; physically and emotionally abusive. His father, Ottorino (Giorgio Colangelli) is bedridden but still demand. There are two rambunctious brats, both boys, and madonna daughter Marcela (Romana Maggiora Vergano) who is intending to marry Giulio (Francesco Centorame). 

Think

Delia is in a constant state of perpetual motion; managing family matters, and her hopes projected on Marcela, that her daughter’s life  will be better than her own. She’s trying to supplement the household income and earn extra lira from repairing clothes for a refined shopkeeper, and umbrellas, where she’s paid less than a boy apprentice who she has to instruct. But despite her protestations to inequity she carries on with dignity and grace. Delia has fleeting interactions with her ex Nino (Vinicio Marchioni) and a friendly GI, well actually MP, African American soldier Willian [sic] (Yonv Joseph).

Feel

‘C'è ancora domani’ in its native Italian out performed both Barbie and Oppenheimer in Italy’s box office, and I can see why. It’s sumptuous in black and white, and Paola Cortellesi as lead and director deftly handles how to balance the ups and downs of rustic roman routine with tragicomedic domestic violence shot as dance choreography. Most distressing for Delia is to see Marcela being beset by the same obstacles that have restricted a woman’s possibility to progress as a person. The emancipation of women came with the right to vote, be educated and control their own reproductive choices. The conclusion of how this comes to a crescendo for Delia was pulled off superbly.