Louis Garrel's charisma isn't enough to make up for an overlaboured script in Nanni Moretti's romantic comedy.
Directors have often enjoyed toying with Louis Garrel’s onscreen heartthrob reputation. The latest to capitalise on his charisma is Nanni Moretti in It Will Happen Tonight, who sets Garrel to work in a decades and nations-spanning romance about waiting for the ones you love. In spite of its ambitious proportions, though, this patience-testing film consistently underwhelms on both the characterisation and chemistry fronts – the “tonight” of its title can’t come soon enough.
The film seems to owe its sprawling nature to the fact that Moretti, Federica Pontremoli and Valia Santella’s script combines various stories from Eshkol Nevo’s collection ‘Hungry Heart’ (Moretti’s second adaptation of the Israeli writer). And it’s also because of this that Moretti’s film briskly morphs from breezy comedy, to “dadcore” cinema (live concert footage of Bruce Springsteen singing the song of the film’s title features as a key plot point), to family melodrama, to a lovers-torn-apart epic, the action skipping forward up to seven years at a time.
The Italian auteur’s trademark humour helps the film to start off strong, initially, in Oslo, where Matteo (Garrel) and his 19-year-old partner Thea (Melina Åkerman) are due to welcome a baby, much to the ire of his hilariously straight-talking mother (Angela Finocchiaro). On the other side of the globe, in the film’s single India-set scene, underemployed actor Greta (Jasmine Trinca) walks out on her long-term partner when he proposes – a subplot which seems to have found itself on the cutting room floor.
Matteo and Greta are supposedly destined for each other, though the sparks they set flying are minimal. Their meet-cute occurs nearly a decade later on Greta’s wedding day (to another man) of all days, when she decides to play an impromptu tennis match with Matteo in her bridal garb. Moretti attempts the mode of French love stories from the likes of Christophe Honoré and Cédric Klapisch, yet Matteo and Greta’s romantic connection never feels earned. Though they seem to have not yet shared a full-length conversation, Matteo, years down the line and now a bookshop owner, spends an afternoon convincing the latter she is “perfect” for him. In typical Moretti fashion, the director himself stars here as Greta’s father, who tries to push the characters together, even while the universe (i.e. his unwieldy script) conspires to keep them apart.
What unfolds from there is a series of sliding doors moments, with the stakes of their romance rising as the pair become further embroiled in alternative relationships and the family units attached. But Moretti seems less interested in the emotional nuances of Matteo and Greta’s ensuing affair than the wishy-washy romanticism that led them to it. The script does an especial disservice to its more minor female characters, Greta’s two rivals Thea and Anna (Elena Lietti), who are portrayed as no more than mere obstacles on Matteo’s predestined path.
It Will Happen Tonight is occasionally redeemed by the Italian director’s hallmarks, from a choreographed musical number to the irresistible dad jokes of Matteo’s father (Antonio De Matteo). But this attempted grand – and ultimately sappy – romance coasts on the onscreen charm of Garrel, which is not enough to ever get the wind into the film’s sails.
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