The Easy Life

Luca has left Italy behind to run a small hospital in rural Kenya. One day his old university friend Mario turns up to lend a hand. Mario is everything Luca is not: a successful Roman surgeon, head of a private clinic, comfortable and a little smug, married to Ginevra, who once happened to be Luca's lover. He hates the dust and the heat, and nobody understands why he came. Then Ginevra arrives too, and the real reason comes out. Mario is running from something at home.

Lucio Pellegrini sets up what looks like a light comedy of two old friends and a love triangle, then lets it turn into something sharper. It becomes a story about money, guilt and the very Italian talent for making corruption feel like common sense. Pierfrancesco Favino is wonderful as Mario, charming and slippery and entirely sure of himself. Stefano Accorsi plays Luca as the good man who may not be quite as simple as he looks. Vittoria Puccini completes the triangle.

It is not a major film, and it doesn't pretend to be. But it is smart, well paced, and it saves its best idea for the end, which made me smile. The Kenyan setting gives it air and light, and the contrast between the two men is the engine of the whole thing. A clever, underseen comedy with a moral sting, and a good reminder of how easily Favino slides between drama and comedy.