Question will be on Rai 1 at 21:30 with the airing of The Hummingbird (the film that opened the Rome Film Festival in 2022). An adaptation of the eponymous novel by Sandro Veronesi (winner of the 2020 Strega Prize), it stars Pierfrancesco Favino as a man – Marco Carrera, nicknamed the hummingbird – who struggles with daily events, loves, and the great drama of losing his only daughter, desperately trying to remain still while everything around him changes.
The Hummingbird, the plot of the film
The life of Marco Carrera (Pierfrancesco Favino) is narrated through his memories, starting from the 70s. While he is at the sea, a young Marco meets his contemporary Luisa Lattes (Bérénice Bejo), a stunning teenager with a unique temperament. It’s love at first sight: a love never consummated, which remains a secret passion in both their lives.
Marco will forever be in love with Luisa. Even when he marries Marina (Kasia Smutniak), with whom he moves to Rome and has a daughter, Adele (Benedetta Porcaroli). Years later, Marina and Marco separate, and Adele, just over twenty, joyfully welcomes a pregnancy from a casual relationship. A mixed-race girl is born, named Miraijin, meaning “person of the future”.
Several months later, during a rock climbing session, his great passion, Adele has a fatal accident. Marco, desperate, finds in his granddaughter the motivation to move forward. The support of the psychoanalyst Daniele Carradori (Nanni Moretti) is also crucial: he teaches Marco how to accept the most unexpected changes in life and to stand by him in the most delicate moments. Including the sudden return of Luisa after so many years.
An unsuccessful adaptation of Sandro Veronesi’s eponymous novel
Bringing a Strega Prize-winning novel to the screen is not simple. Especially if, as in the case of Sandro Veronesi’s book, the plot covers forty years of life, and Italian history is filled with characters revolving around the protagonist.
Francesca Archibugi, with a good dose of disregard for danger, chooses to maintain the fragmented approach of Veronesi’s pages: a fragmented timeline that bounces between flashbacks and flashforwards, investing heavily in a cast of local stars. However, the director, although accustomed to ensemble films like Mignon has Left, struggles to manage this mass.
Diving into complex territories such as that of romantic drama, The Hummingbird does not fully captivate the audience primarily due to “fault” of the whirlwind of underdeveloped characters. Furthermore, the accumulation of tragic and extreme events (deaths, suicides, pregnancies, and betrayals) weighs down the story that, unintentionally, becomes a sort of modern serial. It’s a shame, given the excellent narrative material at hand.
Bérénice Bejo and Pierfrancesco Favino in a scene from “The Hummingbird”. (01 Distribution)
The rich cast of The Hummingbird: from Pierfrancesco Favino to Nanni Moretti
Recently seen at the Venice Film Festival 2024 with Maria by Pablo Larraín (he is the faithful butler of Callas/Angelina Jolie), Favino is having yet another golden moment in his career: he will soon be seen in The Count of Monte Cristo, a French TV series where he stars alongside Pierre Niney as Edmond Dantes.
About his character in The Hummingbird, at the 2022 Rome Film Festival he said, “I particularly liked his almost feminine masculinity, which does not revolve around sexuality. He is a man who puts others before himself. The aspects of his life concern all of us: we all cling to the things we care about.”
The film also highlights the three female characters who revolve around the protagonist. The wife, played by Kasia Smutniak – nominated for the Silver Ribbons as Best Supporting Actress –, the daughter (Benedetta Porcaroli), and the lifelong secret passion, played by Bérénice Bejo.
To further enrich the cast, there is also Nanni Moretti, acting for the sixth time in thirty years of career (from Padre padrone, by the Taviani Brothers, 1977, to The Second Time by Mimmo Calopresti, 1995, including The Portaborse, by Daniele Luchetti, 1991). Moretti was also the lead actor in the adaptation of another Strega Prize-winning novel by Sandro Veronesi, Calm Chaos (2008, directed by Antonello Grimaldi).