“There’s Still Tomorrow,” a dramedy inspired by Italy’s Pink Neorealism genre that follows the plight of an abused housewife in post-war Rome, is scoring record-breaking numbers at Italy’s box office.
After scoring three prizes – including the audience award – at the Rome Film Festival, the black-and-white film, which marks the directorial debut of popular Italian actor Paola Cortellesi, has landed the country’s top box office slot ahead of Lionsgate’s hit slasher “Saw X.” “There’s Still Tomorrow” has grossed more than $3.7 million over the seven-day Italian holiday frame that spans Oct. 26-Nov. 1, via Vision Distribution. “Saw X,” which opened on Oct. 25, pulled roughly $2.5 million.
The first week box office haul for “There’s Still Tomorrow” marks the best opening for an Italian movie since 2022 Christmas comedy “Il Grande Giorno” by local trio Aldo, Giovanni and Giacomo. Furthermore, as local box office analysts are pointing out, the Christmas season is a time of year that’s more conducive to moviegoing than the current period, which makes the film’s result more notable.
Cortellesi, who is one of Italy’s biggest box office draws, stars as the pic’s protagonist Delia, a Roman housewife who gets regularly abused by her violent husband (Valerio Mastandrea) as she juggles odd jobs in between cooking, cleaning and caring for her rowdy young sons and misogynist bedridden father-in-law. Delia sees the engagement of her daughter Marcella (Romana Maggiora Vergano) to her middle-class boyfriend Giulio (Francesco Centorame) as Marcella’s big opportunity to avoid the same fate. But it turns out that he’s also a possessive male chauvinist pig. Everything changes when a mysterious letter arrives and fires up Delia’s courage to turn the tables on fate and start striving for a better life – and not just for herself.
“There’s Still Tomorrow,” which is produced by Mario Gianani’s Wildside, a Fremantle Company, marks another success for Fremantle after winning the Venice Golden Lion with Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Poor Things” and best actress award in Venice with Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla.”
