La pazza gioia (2016)

Villa Biondi, near Pistoia, is a community for women with mental disorders. There, in May 2014, Beatrice, a woman who puts on airs of a grand lady and seems to have ended up there by chance, meets Donatella, a young, introverted and distrustful woman. Beatrice usually spends her time dispensing advice, talking about her high-society connections and interfering in other people’s affairs, even pretending to be a doctor so she can learn details about Donatella and her habits. After a disastrous first encounter, the two women form an unexpected friendship, prompting the staff to select them for a work-rehabilitation program at a local plant nursery. One day, when the bus that is supposed to take them back to the facility is late, the two flee together on a public bus and finally find themselves free in a shopping mall. Hounded by Villa Biondi’s staff, they get help from a passerby who offers them a ride. But the man seems to have bad intentions, and when an opportunity presents itself, Donatella takes the wheel and escapes with her friend, stealing the car. Elated by their escape, they ignore the staff’s calls urging them to return to safety. Instead, they decide to visit a fortune-teller in Uzzano, who gives them cryptic answers and rekindles hope about old ghosts: Donatella’s son, Elia, who was taken from her after she attempted a murder-suicide, and one of Beatrice’s lovers, a man named Renato, who abandoned her. This triggers a crisis, which, now that they have run out of medication, only Beatrice’s positive outlook can calm. She invites her friend to go and have fun in Montecatini Terme. They manage to get by there until the car’s rightful owner finds them and takes it back. They then end up at Donatella’s mother’s house. Her mother has tracked her down by phone after being contacted by the healthcare staff. The woman, who works as a caregiver, offers to put them up for the night because it is already late, intending to have them picked up the next morning. But the two flee again, after stealing medication and money. Hitchhiking, they reach Viareggio, and, swept along by Beatrice’s irresistible urge to have a wild time, they let a few young men pick them up and take them to a nightclub. They arrive at a club in Marina di Pietrasanta where Donatella used to work and where she runs into Maurizio, her former employer, who ruined her by getting her pregnant and abandoning her. After an argument caused by Beatrice, who has gambled away all their money at roulette, the Carabinieri arrive and separate them. Slandered by Maurizio, Donatella is taken into custody and, after her nearly destitute musician father washes his hands of her, she is assigned to a forensic psychiatric hospital because she is considered a danger to society. Meanwhile, Beatrice has disappeared. The next morning, she bursts into the house in Monte Argentario belonging to her ex-husband, a famous lawyer. Left alone with him—he still wants her, despite her having left him and gotten herself into trouble with the supposed Renato, and despite the fact that he has remarried—they sleep together. After drugging him, Beatrice flees again with her husband’s tablet, money and jewelry. Then, pretending to be the lawyer himself, she finds out everything about her friend: how she got into trouble, where she is now, and which family has taken Elia in. She decides to take a taxi to free Donatella from the forensic psychiatric hospital in Castiglione delle Stiviere. Once there, Beatrice manages, in a chaotic fashion, to bribe an attendant and get a bag delivered to Donatella, who has meanwhile fallen back into the deepest depression. It contains Elia’s address and a bracelet worth 35,000 euros. Beatrice also stops in Mantua at the home of Renato, her former lover, a dangerous con man whom she idealizes as a lover who is in love with her. She is saved from a distressing situation only thanks to the taxi driver, who realizes how vulnerable she is. Donatella manages to escape and reaches Capannori, where Beatrice is waiting for her at the beautiful villa belonging to her mother. It turns out that her mother, too, is a victim of Renato’s dishonesty, and she is now fed up with her daughter’s presence, considering her complicit and beyond help. There, while a film crew is shooting a movie, the two women end up among the extras. Dressed in period costumes and makeup, they escape in a vintage convertible and manage to head for Elia’s adoptive parents’ home. While Beatrice distracts them by talking, Donatella manages to spy on Elia, who no longer even recognizes her. The two, disheartened, find themselves without a destination once again and arrive late that evening in Piazza Mazzini in Viareggio, where they let go of their fears and confide in each other. Beatrice understands that, unlike her, Donatella is completely alone—not because of her character, but because of her past. When Villa Biondi’s staff finally manages to find them, Beatrice is caught, while Donatella escapes once more. Even after being hit by a scooter, she has the strength to run away again and hide on the beach, where she wakes the next morning, tired, dirty and bruised. As luck would have it, that day Elia’s adoptive family has gone to the seaside, and for a few minutes Donatella finds herself face-to-face with her little boy, watched by his adoptive parents, who do not intervene so as to avoid conflict and a potential trauma for the child. After swimming with Elia, she talks to him and promises that they will see each other again once she has received treatment. Then she leaves, finally at peace, because she now has a plan for her life. With a supreme effort, she manages to walk to the gates of Villa Biondi, where her friend Beatrice is waiting for her. But Donatella’s confidences have changed Beatrice: she no longer seems to be the extroverted chatterbox she was at the beginning of the film. She is evidently affected by everything her friend had to endure and by the depths of despair to which she was driven, and spends her time keeping to herself and thinking.