2 MIN READ
Ten years ago Paolo Genovese gathered seven friends around a table and let their mobile phones tell what nobody would ever have confessed. Perfetti sconosciuti (Perfect Strangers) became one of the biggest successes of Italian cinema, winning over audiences well beyond national borders. The film entered the Guinness World Records for the number of remakes, which according to the Fondazione Cinema per Roma total about fifty worldwide.
On October 13 Genovese returned to the capital to open the 21st Rome Film Festival, at the Auditorium Parco della Musica Ennio Morricone, with Il rumore delle cose nuove (The Noise of New Things), based on his own novel of the same name. After FolleMente, another great box-office success, the director once again turns to people who have lived together for years without managing, or perhaps without wanting, to truly know each other.
This time we are in Milan, where the lives of three couples proceed apparently without meeting. Stefano Accorsi is a photographer who would like to become a father, while his wife, played by Vittoria Puccini, looks at motherhood with worries her husband cannot understand. In the home of Claudia Pandolfi and Lino Musella, instead, unfulfilled professional aspirations weigh heavily, along with the difficulties of a son who is being bullied. She is an actress disappointed with her career, he works in cinema as a sound technician.
The most difficult story is entrusted to Emanuela Fanelli and Edoardo Pesce. She is a woman who suffers violence from her partner, a man who outside the walls of home shows a completely different face, devoting himself to sick children through clown therapy. A disturbing character precisely because of this double nature, which Edoardo Pesce is called to play without being able to resort to easy simplifications. The cast also includes Claudio Santamaria, an actor of remarkable versatility, in the role of Elio.
At a certain point these lives end up crossing, and what seemed to belong exclusively to the private sphere of each family begins to involve the others as well.
Genovese knows the mechanism of secrets, lies and sudden revelations well. This time, however, the narrative material is broader and includes particularly painful situations. The first reviews mainly appreciated the work of the cast, showing some perplexity about the interlocking of the screenplay, which at times seems to look for surprise at the expense of the naturalness of the story.
It seems an interesting question to me, considering that the credibility of behavior, even in the most paradoxical situations, had contributed to the success of Perfetti sconosciuti.
Il rumore delle cose nuove, accompanied by an original song by Brunori Sas, will reach Italian theaters on November 12, 2026, distributed by 01 Distribution.
–
Alessandro Sicuro
Brand Strategist | Photographer | Art Director | Project Manager
Alessandro Sicuro Comunication
