Feeling Better (Nonostante) Review: Ode to Transient Life

In Feeling Better (Nonostante), the surprise of this year’s Venice Film Festival, Valerio Mastandrea teaches us that life is still worth living no matter how much it hurts.

“Nonostante” literally means “Even though/Despite,” which is the perfect way to describe the film’s characters. It’s in a hospital room that we first meet our nameless protagonist (Mastandrea), simply referred to as “He” in the credits. As a young boy reads a poem to a man in a coma, he sits by the window, listening and making sarcastic remarks, next to the boy’s relatives. But we soon realize that “He” is the man in a coma — only, a part of himself is also somehow able to live and exist in a world of his own, unnoticed by everyone except for the fellow patients.

But nonostante (even though) our hero is in a coma, in a sort of limbo between life and death, he looks pretty content. He spends his days visiting the same places, in and outside the hospital, and he’s even made some friends: a chatty patient with no knowledge of personal space, whom the script refers to as “Curiosone” (Curious Man) (Lino Musella, of The Hand of God), and his next door neighbor “Veterana” (Laura Morante), who’s been in the hospital even longer than he has.

One day, a new patient (Dolores Fonzi’s “She”) arrives and everything changes. Not only is her comatose body placed into what used to be his beloved room, and his own forced to share one with his clingy friend, but her restless, matter-of-fact ways disrupt his routine, preventing him from enjoying his peaceful, emotionless existence. Yet, as more days pass by and the two have more interactions with each other, he’s also strangely drawn to her — someone who wears her feelings on her sleeve nonostante (despite) how precarious her future is.

And so, in the most unlikely of places — yet, at the same time, the perfect place, given how worry-free and detached from reality their existence is — a love story begins. In a film where death looms over most of the people we meet, the circular hospital becomes an arena for our characters to discover how much life has to offer even if, eventually, it all has to end. And where other movies would have opted for melodrama or heartbreaking moments, given the setting and subject matter, Mastandrea and co-writer Enrico Audenino (also a co-writer on Mastandrea’s first feature, Ride) give us a sensitive screenplay that somehow manages to be both overwhelmingly sad and infectiously uplifting.

“You’re not nervous,” She tells Him, halfway through the film, when the two are starting to get to know each other. “You’re just very sad.” That’s when a wave of emotion hit me, as I watched, realizing that I didn’t actually know anything about this seemingly satisfied man, who might not actually be so happy after all. “He” seems to value the memories he made while in a coma more than any connection he had when he was fully alive; as we learn that waking up would mean forgetting his most recent memories, he explains that “if you forget, it’s as if you had died.” “What’s there to remember?,” she asks, and we soon realize that, underneath it all, the hero of this story is grieving.

As the film’s protagonist, Valerio Mastandrea is the glue that holds it together. Like in a theatre play, he’s in almost every frame, demanding our attention from start to end. Not only is “He” an incredibly likely character, but he’s also a highly relatable one, despite the unusual situation in which he finds himself, and it’s thanks to Mastandrea that we’re able to empathize with him at all times. It’s astonishing to think that he managed to pull of such a demanding performance – both emotionally and physically, particularly in a stunning scene at the end that feels like pure magic – while also being on directing and co-writing duties, and to remain objective in a project that comes across as almost autobiographical, as he dedicated it to the memory of his father, Alberto Mastandrea (1950-2014).

The rest of the cast shines too, with Dolores Fonzi, Laura Morante, and Lino Musella all giving it their all and imbuing their characters with the right charm and emotion. Giorgio Montanini plays a character who’s best left unspoiled and who’s responsible for most of the film’s humor: there’s a scene in particular that made me burst out laughing, due to the combination of fantastic writing, excellent timing on Lionello’s side, and particularly effective sound design (Thomas Giorgi and Francesco Lilli). And visually speaking, the film is gorgeous too, with a distinct look that, combined with a fantastic soundtrack, almost makes it feel like a dream.

In the press notes for Feeling Better, Mastandrea explains that, as humans, we are only able to react to suffering and fight back when we meet love, and this feeling is so beautifully explored in a movie that captures the complexities of the human experience in a seemingly effortless way. The film starts to the notes of Jaime Roos’s “Amándote,” a song that’s about loving someone while also being aware of our own mortality, and suffering because of it. Yet, nonostante (despite) how much it hurts, there’s still value in letting ourself experience things, and Feeling Better feels like a celebration of humanity that acknowledges all aspects of being alive. It’s the surprise of the 2024 Venice Film Festival, and a must-watch for fans of good storytelling.

Feeling Better (Nonostante), the opening film of Orizzonti, had its World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival on August 28, 2024. Read our list of films to watch at the 2024 Venice Film Festival!