Review of What Time Is It? (1989) ( Che ora è? ) ( Quelle heure est-il? ) (Blu-Ray)

"Talking to strangers is easier. Talking to your own father is hard. Who says fathers and sons need to talk?"

Reunited with the ale stars of the same year's similarly overlooked Splendor (1989) (Blu-Ray), Ettore Scola's What Time Is It? is one of those nice little films that doesn't break any new ground or offer big dramatic sparks but still rings emotionally true and is quietly satisfying. Too `small' to break out in the English-speaking world, it's a virtual two-hander that follows Marcello Mastroianni's successful lawyer as he visits his son Massimo Troisi one afternoon in the quiet town where he's doing his military service. Following the ebb and flow of the day as they occasionally connect and occasionally find themselves at cross-purposes as they talk about everything to talk about nothing, it's a foregone conclusion that their resentments will eventually spill over into an argument but it's surprisingly unforced getting to that point, recognising that life is less a series of dramatic confrontations and more a gradual simmering before things slip out and are crudely and not too effectually smoothed over only to sporadically resurface.

Not much happens: they have lunch, go to a movie, drop in unannounced on Troisi's girlfriend Anne Parillaud and go to a friend's bar. The bones of contention are small in movie terms, but convincingly human - for all his father's protestations that he finds him thoughtful, Troisi thinks he believes him indecisive and he's uncomfortable with the lavish gifts his father bestows on him unbidden (he's more genuinely excited by getting his grandfather's pocket watch than a new car or Rome apartment because it has a real emotional attachment for him) or the way he feels he over-enthusiastically tries to turn his son's passing whims or hobbies into career plans. Both stars are excellent, Mastroianni warm and charming yet never able to put his son at his ease, initially subtly smothering and increasingly prone to sulking, Troisi convincingly awkward at times as someone who wants to be his own man even if he doesn't quite know what that means just at the moment. They're honest performances that feel real, and crucially you believe that they are father and son rather than just a couple of good actors, so it's little surprise that they both shared the Best actor prize at the 1989 Venice Film Festival.

Scola's direction is quietly impressive too, unfussy but with nice little touches, whether it's Troisi suddenly noticing how old his father is in a series of extreme close-ups as a memory of the war years comes up or a tuxedoed waiter doing his James Bond impersonation in a mirror, while the pivotal bar scene where Mastroianni realises just how little he really knows about his son is beautifully handled. That Mastroianni outlived his screen son, who died of a heart attack within hours of finishing work on Il Postino, adds a strange resonance to the film.

Gaumont's region-free French Blu-ray offers a nice transfer with French credits but both original Italian and dubbed French options along with English subtitles. There's an hour's worth of interviews with Scola, cinematographer Luciano Tovoli and Michael Radford, as well as the film's specially filmed trailer with Mastroianni and Troisi failing to recognise each other while striking up a conversation (albeit dubbed into French), though none are subtitled in English.