Confusi e felici (2014)

Rome. Marcello is a psychoanalyst dealing with a rather unusual group of patients: Nazareno is a neighborhood drug dealer who suffers from panic attacks and is expecting a child; Pasquale, a bus driver, is forty and dependent on his mother and on food; Vitaliana is a nymphomaniac infatuated with Marcello; Betta and Enrico are a couple lacking sex and passion; and Michelangelo, a successful sports commentator, has violent outbursts of anger brought on by his wife’s affair with a German lover. One day, during an archery contest, his great passion, Marcello notices a problem with his eyesight. Tests confirm that he has a serious illness that will leave him blind within a few months. The psychoanalyst then falls into depression and abruptly ends his relationship with his patients. However, guided by the doctor’s secretary, Silvia, they refuse to accept the idea of losing him and set out to help Marcello start living again. His ophthalmologist also advises him to see a psychiatrist she knows, Andrea, whose help will also make a considerable difference. The group grows very close, and Marcello, happy again, helps his patients solve their problems with an energy he may never have shown before. Everything seems to be going well, but a follow-up examination reveals a bitter truth: Marcello will lose his sight within a few weeks, and the only option left is an operation at a specialized center in Germany. However, there is a serious chance the procedure will fail and the psychoanalyst will lose his sight immediately. Marcello plunges into despair again and mistreats all his patients, once more ending up alone. Andrea, who in the meantime has become the group’s new therapist, persuades him to take his chances and free himself of his fears. Reconciled with his friends, he sets off for Germany with them. During the journey, the group stops at Marcello’s daughter’s restaurant in Trentino, where Nazareno’s child is born. Then, on the night before the operation, Marcello and Silvia, who have grown closer over time, make love, as do Betta and Enrico, and Vitaliana and Pasquale. Unfortunately, the operation fails: Marcello loses his sight, but now determined to face life with serenity alongside his friends and Silvia, he finally starts living again.