MOGLIE E MARITO/ WIFE AND HUSBAND

Italy, 2017, 95 minutes, Colour.

Pierfrancesco Favini, Kasia Smutniak, Valerio Aprea.

Directed by Simone Godano.

Vice versa comedies have been popular over the decades, mothers and daughters exchanging bodies, fathers and sons, older and younger, but, this time, it is husband and wife.

The style of the film is rather broad comedy, the establishing of the husband absorbed by his scientific investigations, investing all his inherited money in the experiments, working with a collaborator, going to make a device which will be able to record human memories. In the interested parties in exploiting the invention. On the other hand, the wives involved with a television station, the possibility of her becoming an interviewer.

Meanwhile, at home, the various tensions, he very much Owen’s expectations, she very disappointed, but the love for their son. Divorce proceedings.

The key episode is when the husband is experimenting, persuades his wife to sit and make a connection so that they can download each other’s memories. And, of course, this is the beginning of both comic and serious issues, and a lot of farcical comedy.

PF Francesco Fellini has become one of Italy’s top dramatic actors – and, he establishes his match our character and then has to go through the latter part of the film with his wife’s consciousness and her manner transferring to his body and bodily style. And, of course, the contrast with the wife becoming masculine in her manner. On the one hand, is easy for a male actor to become more simpering. On the other hand, there is the challenge for the actress match oh in her behaviour, sitting with legs spread apart, rough, awkward in shoes, even the issue of the monthly period.

Which means all kinds of complications, misunderstandings, the fiasco with interviews at the studio and angry interviewees – but popular with audiences. And, the awkwardness at the laboratory and the dangers of losing the invention. And, of course, the reactions of friends and employers to the strange behaviour.

A variation on the vice versa theme, a bit more unusual and the freaky Friday kinds of stories.