Days and Clouds

Well-to-do, sophisticated couple Elsa and Michele (Margherita Buy and Antonio Albanese) have a 20-year-old daughter, Alice, and enough money for Elsa to leave her job and fulfill an old dream of studying art history. After she graduates, however, their lives change. Michele confesses he hasn't worked in two months and was fired by the company he founded years ago. Elsa overcomes her initial shock by pouring extra energy into facing the crisis while Michele, exhausted by an unsuccessful job hunt, lets himself go, alternating between vivacity and apathy. The growing distance between them eventually leads to a break-up. Only when they part will they realize that they risk losing their most precious possession: the love that binds them.


2008 David Di Donatello Award winner for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress


“Silvio Soldini’s film DAYS AND CLOUDS suggests that Italy’s middle class is as much under siege as that of the United States. In both countries, it appears, job security isn’t what it used to be, and corporate downsizing is plunging affluent families into sudden financial tailspins. Michele (Antonio Albanese), the movie’s tight-lipped protagonist, is a stolid businessman in Genoa whose partners, one of whom is his oldest friend, oust him from the company after 20 years. Business is business, and when it clashes with friendship, friendship goes by the wayside. He is so ashamed to deliver the bad news to his wife, Elsa (Margherita Buy), an art restorer who has just earned an advanced degree, that he keeps it from her until the morning after a lavish surprise birthday party he has arranged for her. Instead of going to work for the last two months, Michele confesses, he has been spending his days on his boat, which he will have to sell along with their home. All they have left is about 21,000 euros (not quite $33,000). DAYS AND CLOUDS, like Mr. Soldini’s 2000 film Bread and Tulips, observes a middle-aged couple in crisis. But this film — unlike its forerunner, which was set in Venice — is unblinkingly realistic.” (Stephen Holden, New York Times)