Tempers boil during a Christmas Eve dinner in Milan when the family’s overbearing widowed matriarch Angela (Vanessa Scalera) commandeers the kitchen and starts doling out orders, passive-aggressive self-pity, and endless platters of food seasoned with spite and cigarette ash in caustic Italian comedy-drama The Fire Within You.
Premiering in competition at the Venice Film Festival, the latest from director Edoardo De Angelis (Indivisible) has interesting things to say about class, political and North-South divisions in contemporary Italy, and features some bracingly energetic serio-comic performances — especially from Scalera, whose monstrous mama has an operatically exaggerated energy that’s a bit of a thrill.
The Fire Within You
The Bottom Line
Basta!
