30-second review: Pranzo di ferragosto

Charming and unpretentious film, about a middle-aged man living with his elderly mother, who ends up mamma-sitting for 3 other old ladies during a mid-August bank holiday. And that's all the plot there is. Nothing much happens. He cooks, the old ladies eat, and bicker amongst themselves, and sulk, and make up. No earth-shattering revelations about the women's pasts, no deep reflections on growing old, on time passing, on family and responsibilities. But there are looks exchanged, and quantities of white wine drunk, and a ride through Rome on a Vespa, and wrinkles galore, and how nice to hear Italian being spoken, and to see the summer sunlight, even if it is only on a movie screen.