‘The Fire Within You’: A Monstrous Mama Unleashes in Italian Dramedy

Tempers boil during a Christmas Eve dinner in Milan when the family’s overbearing widowed matriarch Angela (Vanessa Scalera) commandeers the kitchen and starts doling out orders, passive-aggressive self-pity, and endless platters of food seasoned with spite and cigarette ash in caustic Italian comedy-drama The Fire Within You.

Premiering in competition at the Venice Film Festival, the latest from director Edoardo De Angelis (Indivisible) has interesting things to say about class, political and North-South divisions in contemporary Italy, and features some bracingly energetic serio-comic performances — especially from Scalera, whose monstrous mama has an operatically exaggerated energy that’s a bit of a thrill.

However, The Fire Within You will be an acquired taste for some given that the constant bickering and offensive stream of bile out of Angela’s mouth may leave some viewers with family issues feeling triggered and desperate to run for the exit, or upstairs to their bedroom to put noise-cancelling headphones on and cuddle the cat. (That last bit may just be me.) Honestly, this makes the episode “Fishes” in The Bear look like a Noel Coward play.

Working off of a novel by Antonio Franchini, the script by Francesco Piccolo, Ilaria Macchia and De Angelis unfolds over just one night in the flat of Angela’s son, Antonio (Lino Musella), a literary editor who is married to Benedetta (Elena Radonicich). The couple have two teenage kids, Andrea (Samuele Mazza) and Valentina (Nicole Malaj), who are constantly, rightly offended by their grandmother’s steady stream of offensive denigration, such as her calling Andrea a “fag” because he does ballet. (It’s implied that yes, he is gay, but that doesn’t make her language any less vile.)

Everyone in the family gets the sharp end of bitter, permanently scowling Angela’s caustic tongue: Antonio for having abandoned Angela down in Naples by moving up to Milan years ago; Benedetta for not being sufficiently wifely (she doesn’t cook), Neapolitan, or grateful to Angela for taking over her kitchen; and then later Angela’s daughter/Antonio’s sister Paola (Ivan Lotito) for being a disappointment in every way possible, and so on.

Rest assured, Angela doesn’t just pour scorn on her family. She’s also a right-wing crypto Fascist, Berlusconi supporter, who hates immigrants, any woman more attractive than herself, any woman less attractive than herself, and men who fail to live up to her ideals, which is practically all of them, especially those in her family.  

DP Vladan Radovic’s deliberately jittery, whiplash cinematography follows the action around the apartment from room to room, almost feeling like an invisible extra character (Angela’s late husband perhaps?) who is looking on with horror at the chaos. Adding an extra element of entropy is a young rooster that Angela tries to get Antonio to kill in the opening minutes, but which escapes the knife and then spends the rest of the film strutting around skittishly. Props to the film’s animal wrangler for managing to get the engaging creature into just about every shot, providing some welcome comic relief.  

Although Angela insists that capon should be on the menu, there’s more than enough food around, from the burnt eggplant parmigiano and excessively oily salad she makes to the deli spread Benedetta smuggles in because everyone is starving and Angela won’t serve until she’s finished cooking. Dinner is further delayed by the sudden arrival of Antonio’s latest author, Giulio Simonetti (Tommaso Ragno), a pompous egomaniac whose presence just makes it all worse. When Antonio finally explodes in fury at his mother, having at last been pushed too far by her saying crap like he should have died at birth to spare her suffering later on, it’s a welcome catharsis even if it’s clear his rage won’t solve any problems or change his mother.

Indeed, in the end, there’s not much to learn here about fractious Italian family dynamics that we haven’t seen already elsewhere. But the ensemble impresses for their tight comic timing and ability to make the 1.5x speed dialogue sound naturalistic and spontaneous. No one here is especially likeable, but that very lack of sentimentality or even willingness to please is oddly admirable in the end.