Now a Cannes veteran, French filmmaker Christophe Honoré has returned to the Competition with the world premiere of Marcello Mio, his French-Italian comedy that stars longtime collaborator Chiara Mastroianni — who, in the film, adopts the persona and appearance of her late father, Marcello Mastroianni.
The movie received applause that lasted a touch over eight minutes during its unveiling this evening. Marcello Mio taps into the younger Mastroianni’s complex reality of being the daughter of cinema icons Marcello Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve.
In a fantasy scenario, Chiara hits a crisis point and begins to dress, speak and breathe like her late father, the legendary star of such films as La Dolce Vita, 81/2 and Marriage Italian Style.
Those around her, including Deneuve, Fabrice Luchini, Melvil Poupaud, Benjamin Biolay, Nicole Garica and Hugh Skinner, who also play part-real, part-fictionalized versions of themselves in Marcello Mio, begin to believe it and start to call her “Marcello.” The journey takes Chiara to her father’s home city of Rome, where she revisits old haunts and key backdrops of his filmography even jumping in the Trevi Fountain for her own La Dolce Vita moment.
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