A mid-August lunch sounds appetizing. To whet your appetite, a movie with the title Mid-August Lunch sounds salubrious. Must see it.

Having seen Italy’s Mid-August Lunch (2008), it is about celebrating food and life. What would you expect from Italiano?

Mid-August Lunch is the first of three Italian comedies headlined by Gianni Di Gregorio. The 60-plus-something writer also starred and directed in all three films.

He plays Gianni, who lives with his elderly mother in Rome.

Not judgmental

The style of the film is to approach life naturally, and the conversations are a slice of life, between mother and son.

There is no judgment of Gianni and his life. In Italy, a son living with his mother is quite normal.

From where I live, I’ve heard radio disk jockeys make fun of children in their older age living at home, as if unnatural.

In this so-called unnatural state, there is no criticism of it, in Mid-August Lunch. Gianni helps his mother as if it is quite an ordinary part of life at his age.

He seems to quite enjoy it.

Accommodating

The lifestyle in Italy seems to allow for it. Gianni and his mother won’t be kicked out of their condo for not paying their bills, so they can keep on going at leisure. The condo manager will erase some of the debt if a couple of older ladies can come and stay for a month.

Slicing off debt is as easy as that and mother and son can stay in the condo. So Gianni is off to work, cooking for their guests, preparing their visitor’s medicines, and making their beds, while paying off their debts, by ‘mucking’ in for the older folk.

Wonderful.

Subtitled in English. Spoken in Italian.

Lead actor, writer and director: Gianni Di Gregorio