Il silenzio grande (2021)

Naples, the 1960s. Valerio Primic is a celebrated writer who, after numerous successes, has been in decline for some time. He lives in a sumptuous villa near the city with his wife, Rose, their two children, Massimiliano and Adele, and their faithful housekeeper, Bettina. Relations with his family, however, are very strained: Valerio spends his days shut away in his study, surrounded by his books, searching for a new idea for his next work and taking no interest at all in what is happening at home. As a result, he does not notice that the family’s financial resources have dwindled drastically, bringing the Primics to the brink of poverty. Rose visits Valerio in the library and tells him she intends to sell Villa Primic, so they can turn the page and start over with the proceeds. The idea was suggested by Luca, Valerio’s cousin and the manager of the family’s estate, who is secretly in love with Rose. Valerio is upset by the news, but his resolute wife throws his mistakes and the income lost because of his bad decisions back in his face. Later, Massimiliano visits his father and, in the wake of the news that Villa Primic is to be sold, tells him in turn that he holds him responsible for ruining his life. The young man has always suppressed his true nature to prove that he was worthy of his father, who, however, has never shown him affection or admiration. He also reveals that he is gay and gave up a career as an engineer to please him. Adele visits her father later as well. Unlike her brother, she has always had Valerio’s affection, but this led her to seek it in her partners, preferring the company of men much older than herself—married men with children—to that of men her own age. She is also pregnant by an elderly literary critic who later abandoned her, and does not know whether to keep the baby. Overwhelmed by all this news, Valerio confides in Bettina, who makes him reflect on how all these events are entirely the result of his inability to communicate with his family. Villa Primic is sold. In the now almost empty library, Valerio waits for the move to be completed with Bettina, and they confide in each other how sad they are to leave the house. The sale of the villa, however, seems to have done the rest of the family good. Massimiliano, much calmer and more self-assured than before, tells his father that he invested some of the sale proceeds in buying a theater and has fallen in love with one of the partners involved in the deal. Adele, who also became involved in the deal on Rose’s advice, has decided to keep the baby and has begun a relationship with an older man—by coincidence, the same man her brother has fallen for. Shaken by this news, Valerio decides for the first time to take matters into his own hands and be there for his children, in the hope of preventing future disasters. But at that point Rose arrives, ready to leave Villa Primic for good, and opens up to him. It is then revealed that Valerio actually died several years earlier, and Bettina died shortly afterward. Though aware of the situation, the housekeeper had avoided talking about it with Valerio because she realized that the other members of the family had tried to keep in touch with him by acting as though he were still in the library where he loved to shut himself away, and by speaking to him as if he were present. Paradoxically, then, Valerio’s death and subsequent absence have broken down the wall of silence that had arisen between the four of them, to the benefit of Rose, Massimiliano, and Adele, who have finally found their way. Valerio manages to embrace Rose one last time before the Primic family leaves the villa forever.