The Entrepreneur

Turin, in the middle of the financial crisis. Nicola has inherited a small factory from his father, and it is sinking. The banks will not lend, the workers are anxious, and the only way out seems to be foreign investors with no interest in what the factory means. At home, his marriage to Laura is quietly cracking. Nicola is too proud to share his fears, and slowly his sense of losing control at work turns into suspicion and jealousy of his wife.

Giuliano Montaldo, a veteran of Italian political cinema, made this when he was over eighty, and it has the clarity of someone who has watched the country for a long time. The film is shot in cold blues and greys, Turin looking like a city where the light has gone out. Pierfrancesco Favino is excellent as Nicola, a decent man pushed past his limits, whose pride makes everything worse. Carolina Crescentini is strong as Laura, a woman watching her husband become a stranger.

It is a film about the crisis seen from an unusual angle: not the workers, but the small owner caught between them and the banks, losing his dignity one meeting at a time. The thriller elements in the second half are a little less convincing than the portrait. But as a picture of a man and a country running out of options, it is sharp and sad. Underrated.