Comedians (2021)

The six aspiring comedians attending the stand-up comedy course taught by former comedian Eddie Barni are in the final stages of preparing for a show at a famous club. The great television comedian Bernardo Celli will be there, and he will sign the most deserving of them to his talent agency. Each of the six is deeply dissatisfied with his life and his job, and hopes to win this competition for a chance to turn things around. Preparations are marked by tension, mainly because of the six comedians’ personalities: brothers Filippo and Leo Marri do not get along, but cannot avoid performing together; Samuele Verona is conceited and obnoxious; Gio Di Meo seems friendly and engaging, but is actually hypocritical and selfish; Michele Cacace, who is from southern Italy, is very shy and submissive; and finally, the young Giulio Zappa is brazen and impatient with the hang-ups of his older colleagues. Eddie has taught them to perform without resorting to stereotypes and, rather than chasing laughs from the audience at all costs, to focus on themselves and bring out their melancholic side, turning it into comedy. Each of the six accepts or rejects these lessons, and this is the main source of discord among them. Preparations for the show are interrupted several times because of tensions within the group, Eddie’s advice, and the sudden arrival of Patel, an Indian man who has wandered into the class by mistake. A few minutes before the show, Celli himself comes to visit: the rivalry between him and Eddie, who was once his sidekick, is immediately obvious. Taking advantage of Eddie’s absence, Celli gives an encouraging speech, but completely overturns Eddie’s approach: he is looking for a cruder kind of comedy that goes straight for the audience’s laughter. This leaves the six comedians dispirited, and they must suddenly decide whether to stick with the act they had put together with Eddie or change it to please Celli. The show begins, and the six perform one after another. Michele decides to remain true to Eddie’s teachings and talks about his experience as a southerner transplanted to the North, but ultimately gives in to his own insecurity. Samuele and Gio, by contrast, decide to change course completely and launch into monologues steeped in sexism, racism, and other stereotypes. Halfway through their act, Filippo Marri tries to persuade Leo to tell a joke to please Celli, but Leo refuses, and the performance ends disastrously. Finally, Giulio gives a surreal performance that is hardly funny at all, at times even sadistic. After the show, the six comedians return to the classroom, each disappointed with his own performance and reproaching the others for their mistakes. Their argument is interrupted, however, by Eddie and Celli’s return. Celli gives a curt verdict on each performance, pointing out its weaknesses: he reprimands Michele and the Marri brothers and completely dismisses Giulio’s act, while deciding to take Gio and Samuele under his wing, though with plenty of reservations. The two winners leave the classroom happy and satisfied; the Marri brothers part ways, probably for good. Visibly saddened, Michele says that he will nevertheless attend Eddie’s future courses and remain loyal to him. Left alone with Giulio, Eddie asks why he chose to put on such a sad and aggressive act. The young man replies that he was only following Eddie’s teachings, trying to bring out his own negative side. Eddie then tells him that during the Second World War, in the concentration camps, there was a corner set aside for punishing prisoners, pointing out how the cruel irony of this circumstance does indeed fit his idea of comedy. The two part on a note of mutual respect. As Eddie is leaving too, he runs into Patel, who tells him a self-deprecating joke about being Hindu. Finding it funny, the comedian invites him to attend his course in the future.