Citizens of the World

Giorgetto is an Italian living on a pension who has retired from working as little as possible all his life. He tells his friend, a retired high school classics teacher known only as The Professor, that he’s heard their meagre incomes will go much farther if they move abroad. Thus begins the gentle comedy Citizens of the World, originally titled Lontano Lontano (roughly, Far, Far Away). The duo become a trio when they rope in new friend Attilio, who restores antiques and has no pension at all. Together the three men contrive to get together as much capital as they can and find paradise — somewhere.

These guys are not the dapper, witty old men of Hollywood movies — they look and act well-worn, and their dialogue is realistically scattered and prickly. They’re basically good guys, having befriended a homeless young refugee from Mali named Abu, whose courage and ambitious plans contrast with the older men’s shaky commitment and shoddy execution of their own scheme.

The director is Gianni Di Gregorio, who also plays The Professor, and he’s got an easygoing style on both sides of the camera and as co-writer. The movie’s themes — the tension between “the grass is greener” and “home sweet home” — are developed in smile-inducing scenes, mostly populated with the kinds of ordinary, upbeat, struggling people rarely seen in American films. The setting is Rome — not the romantic city of spy movies, but a sprawling metropolis of dust and dingy bars and overstuffed bodegas. (Tourist landmarks are seen only briefly, and from a distance.)

Like the Rome they inhabit, Di Gregorio and his two costars (Ennio Fantastichini and Giorgio Colangeli) are likable not because they’re heroic but because they’re gritty and real. Similarly, Citizens of the World is not a laugh-out-loud comedy but an affable fable that ends with a genial twist and some watermelon — like the film, sweet but not that filling.

Grade: B. Now available via Grail Moviehouse’s Virtual Sofa Cinema streaming service.

Photo courtesy of Parthenos Distribuzione/Torino Film Festival