Director: Alice Rohrwacher

Stars: Josh O’Connor, Isabella Rossellini, Carol Duarte, Alba Rohrwacher

Alice Rohrwacher’s latest is a typically freewheeling and lyrical tale set in 80s Tuscany. It’s also her most enjoyable picture to date. Josh O’Connor is Arthur, a shabby, disreputable-looking English archaeological scholar, just released from prison. He is making his way to the coastal village of Riparbella to be reunited with his friend, the eccentric ageing aristocrat Flora (Rossellini, charming) in her dilapidated grand old villa. Arthur, it is revealed, was in love with, and lost, Flora’s daughter Beniamina, and still pines for her. In Riparbella, he also hooks up with old acquaintances, an eccentric gang of grave robbers or tombaroli. Utilizing his uncanny dowsing powers, Arthur is able to help them locate lost and buried Etruscan treasure, which they in turn pass on to a shady dealer, Spartaco, played by the director’s older sister Alba. This is a playfully elusive and thematically rich puzzle, replete with fourth wall breaking, musical interludes and moments of mysticism, which fizzes with mischief and musings on the permeability of past and present, while nodding to Italian mythology and vintage cinema. O’Connor’s hangdog chain-smoking hero recalls Belmondo at his most appealing.

David Willoughby

Follow David on Twitter @DWill_Crackfilm