Femmine contro Maschi (2011)

Anna, a andrologist, and Piero, a gas station attendant, have been married for twenty years and have a son. She is cultured and sophisticated; he is uneducated, a die-hard Juventus fan, and unfaithful. An accidental mishap causes Piero to lose his memory, leaving him with memories only up to high school, before their relationship began. Anna decides to shape him to her liking and turn him into the perfect man—not to mention a true-born Torinese, despite his southern origins, to the point that he memorizes the Piedmontese dialect. Piero thus becomes the husband she had always dreamed of, until his friends tell him what he was really like. Anna, also prompted by criticism from her friends and her own son, and realizing that she liked him the way he was before, decides to confess. But Piero furiously leaves home because his wife has replaced him by turning him into someone else. In the end, during a Juventus match, his wife publicly apologizes to him, prompting Piero to do the same. He admits that he had cheated on her for years, but Anna tells him that she had always known. The two forgive each other and get back together. Rocco, a school janitor, and Michele, an office worker, play in a Beatles cover band and are about to take part in an important music competition. Their partners, Valeria and Diana, disapprove of their passion. Michele even keeps his involvement with the band from his wife, and also lets her believe that he no longer sees Rocco. However, after Rocco is thrown out of his home following yet another argument with Valeria, he takes refuge with his friend because of a misunderstanding, and the latter lie is exposed. Living together proves difficult, especially since Diana has just discovered she is pregnant and does not want her husband’s friend in the house. To try to sort things out, Michele talks to Valeria to persuade her to get back together with Rocco, but they end up arguing. Michele reminds her that, although Rocco may seem very childish, he desperately wants to start a family with her, and that she should appreciate his passions because they make him carefree and cheerful. In the end, Rocco wins Valeria back by dedicating an unscheduled song to her. This gets the band disqualified from the competition, but in return Valeria finally learns to appreciate his passion and lets him come home. Diana, meanwhile, discovers that Michele is still playing in the Beatles cover band and throws him out. The situation is thus reversed: Michele goes to live with Valeria and Rocco, and the two set about trying to persuade his wife to forgive him, since they want to try to have a baby. Marcello, a plastic surgeon, and Paola, a bank employee, have two children and have been divorced for years. But when they visit Clara, his eighty-year-old mother with a heart condition, once a month, they pretend to still be a happy family, even though Paola is with another man, Roberto. Marcello learns from Dr. Pandolfelli that Clara has had a heart attack and has only a few months to live. He therefore welcomes her into his home so that she can spend the end of her life happily, while continuing to pretend that the family is united. Out of love for Paola, Roberto moves into a residential hotel, creating no small amount of strain in their relationship. As their grandmother’s presence becomes increasingly intrusive, forcing them to shoot fake vacation videos, the couple’s younger son, Lorenzo, falls in love with a classmate named Giada. He chooses the school janitor, Rocco, as his trusted adviser and eventually wins Giada over, with his grandmother’s help. Marcello and Paola begin to realize that they still have feelings for each other, until Paola leaves Roberto after he makes an extremely inappropriate remark about Marcello’s mother. Marcello eventually discovers that Dr. Pandolfelli was actually his mother’s rotisserie cook, disguised as a doctor to make Marcello take more interest in his mother. A short time later, however, Clara really is hospitalized, with only minutes to live. In those final minutes, she tells Marcello and Paola that she had long since realized they were no longer together, but had pretended not to notice so she could enjoy watching their clumsy efforts to fool her. This time, the two sincerely tell her they will truly get back together. Clara then dies peacefully, and shortly afterward Marcello and Paola return home, reunited with their children.