Saturn In Opposition

Moving and stimulating in turns, perhaps because of the potent espresso of Italian acting talent it serves up, Saturno Contro is an effective European ensemble piece. Unfortunately, it’s also about 15 minutes too long and for its ending can only muster a tepid sigh.

Director Ferzan Ozpetek takes another group of close friends, here middle-aged and middle class, to explore once again the strength and frailty of contemporary human relationships. Pierfrancesco Favino (Romanzo Criminale) leads as Davide, a successful, sensitive writer and central social cog for his assorted friends, played by the likes of Margherita Buy (from Ozpetek’s Le Fate Ignorati), Stefano Accorsi (Romanzo Criminale and Le Fate Ignorati) and Filippo Timi (In Memory of Me). This suburbanite set have developed a bantering equilibrium over the courses of dinner parties, tasteful wines and shared years. Their pasta then threatens to boil over when a homegrown tragedy strikes one of the group, leaving everyone shell-shocked.

The cast play their characters with warmth and sincerity and together create some genuinely moving moments. Extra-marital shenanigans and past lovers’ contrition are practically compulsory in a European film with this set up, but Ozpetek and Gianni Romoli’s script has more sophistication in mind. The rapports create moments of familiar humour; there are some wry comments on gay relationships and perceptions of them across the generations and some poignant expressions of individual grief and mourning.

They’re a large bunch, though, and Ozpetek and Romoli struggle to define everyone with the same depth. As we get to know them more, some characters emerge as far more three dimensional and less mechanical than others. Timi, so powerful in Saverio Costanzo’s In Memory of Me, is the most apparently underused. This leaves the film's worthy attempt to ensure that everyone finds a resolution of sorts by the end ultimately overplayed. It also leaves Ozpetek with that perennial problem of the ensemble drama, how to satisfactorily end the damn thing. Having avoided sentimentality for the most part, he half succumbs in the final scenes for want of a better conclusion.

Still, it’s a thoughtful and diverting film and, like its cast, untiringly stylish.