6.6 /10 1 Votes
3.4/5 Mubi Release date 1979 (1979) | 6.5/10 IMDb Music by Ennio Morricone Initial release 1979 (Italy) Screenplay Elio Petri Story by Elio Petri | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Cast Similar Directed by Elio Petri, Comedies | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Buone notizie elio petri 1979 good news eng subs
Good News (Italian: Buone notizie) is a 1979 Italian satirical comedy film written and directed by Elio Petri and starring Giancarlo Giannini. It is the last film of Petri.
Contents
Plot
An anonymous employee of a television company leads a seemingly ordinary life, going to work every day and returning home to his wife in the evening. At his job, he is constantly confronted with images of violence and disasters, to which he shows no reaction, while his marriage is marked by his and his wife Fedora's inability to communicate. He makes sexual advances to his colleague Tignetti and Fedora's friend Benedetta, but is rejected by both.
One day, he is contacted by his old schoolfriend Gualtiero whom he hasn't seen in 15 years. Gualtiero confides that he is being followed by enemies determined to kill him, although he has no idea who these enemies could be. Eventually, Gualtiero agrees to be committed to a mental hospital. The man has an erotic interlude with Gualtiero's wife Ada, but due to their psychological deficiencies, they are unable to sleep with each other. Later, he learns from Fedora that she is pregnant.
When the man sees a TV news report covering Gualtiero's violent death, he rushes to the hospital, where he breaks down in tears. The motive for the murder remains unclear, as the victim might as well have been mistaken for one of the clinic's prominent political patients. At Gualtiero's funeral, Fedora confesses that it is his dead friend's child she is expecting. Furious at first, the man agrees with her to have the child. Back at work, he receives an envelope from Gualtiero with the words "not to be opened" written on it. He opens it, only to find a vast number of cards inside with the same words printed on them.
Cast
Production
The role of Gualtiero had originally been intended for Michel Piccoli before Paolo Bonacelli took the part.
Reception
The film received mixed reviews from critics. Cinema Nuovo criticized it for offering a too generalized view of contemporary society. Giovanni Grazzini, writing for Corriere della Sera, acknowledged that while the staging was effective, the film struggled to maintain the light and engaging logic typical of a surreal parable. On a more positive note, Dario Zanelli of Il Resto del Carlino praised the film for its captivating momentum and noted an "ambiguous Bunuelian flavour" in its concluding scenes. However, Mira Liehm, in her 1986 book on Italian cinema, described "Good News" as a "somewhat naive treatise on sexual obsessions and the fear of death."