James Cagney came out of a 20-year retirement, for his final great role in 1981’s Ragtime.
Audrey Hepburn returned from semi-retirement after 1967’s Wait Until Dark, for 1976’s Robin and Marian and a few more choice roles.
Cary Grant stayed retired after 1966’s Walk, Don’t Run (more’s the pity).
Although knowing full well how he spends his daytime hours, Madame Rosa (Sophia
Loren) soon sees something worth saving in the tough young street kid (Ibrahima
Gueye) who has been thrust into her life.
And now Sophia Loren, 86 years young, has returned to cinema after a decade-long absence. The lure: The Life Ahead, debuting on Netflix. It’s a fresh adaptation of Romain Gary’s 1975 novel, The Life Before Us, which won the Foreign Language Academy Award when filmed in 1977 as Madame Rosa.
The additional lure: This new version is directed by her son, Edoardo Ponti.
They do each other proud.
The setting is seaside Naples, more or less in the present day. Even so, Ponti and cinematographer Angus Hudson maintain an atmosphere of vagueness; absent the presence of cell phones, this could be 10, 20 years ago. The nature of the story is similarly timeless; the script — by Ugo Chiti, Fabio Natale and Ponti — quietly emphasizes the universality of relationships, trust and kindness.
The elderly Madame Rosa (Loren) is a former prostitute who, with the assistance of a local doctor (Renato Carpentieri, as Dr. Coen), has made a second career of caring for the abandoned — or orphaned — children of sex workers. Such placements are intended to be temporary: only until each child can be sent to a safer, more permanent environment.
Her current charges are Iosif (Iosif Diego Pirvu), an adolescent she’s teaching to read and speak Hebrew; and the toddler daughter of Lola (Abril Zamora), a trans prostitute who’s a close friend. This little network of allies also includes Hamil (Babk Karimi), a shopkeeper who respects Madame Rosa for her selfless work.
She has performed this valuable service for years and years: long enough that some of her former “wards” have become the police officers who tacitly leave her alone, when rousting other “undesirables” from the neighborhood.
She’s mugged one day by Momo (Ibrahima Gueye), a brazen 12-year-old street kid who — in one of those coincidences favored by stories of this sort — happens to be Dr. Coen’s latest “project.” He coaxes truth from the boy, and thus is able to return Madame Rosa’s stolen property. And then — salt in the wound! — he asks her to take temporary charge of Momo: a proposal that dismays both of them.
Give it time, Dr. Coen pleads; there’s some good in the boy. She isn’t sure about that. (Neither are we.)
Momo’s presence proves disruptive, beginning with his determination to intimidate the somewhat gentler Iosif. Nor do we miss the ironic circumstances that separate these two boys. Iosif studies Hebrew, while waiting for the day when his mother will come back for him; Momo ignores his Muslim heritage, knows his mother is dead, and deals drugs for a mid-level thug (Massimiliano Rossi) who operates from the local fish market.
But Momo can’t stand up to the steel in Madame Rosa’s voice, and he grudgingly abides by her demand for respect, while likely appreciating the fact that she doesn't coddle him. Indeed, her bluntness is quite endearing: “You’re a little shit,” she comments, at one point, “but I know you keep your word.” And, perhaps to his surprise, he does.
Gueye is a remarkably natural presence, in a totally unaffected film debut. He exudes the wary opportunism of a kid who grew up on the streets, as if forever seeking an angle; at the same time, his sullen expression and defiantly cocky behavior can’t wholly conceal the vulnerability of the forlorn 12-year-old concealed beneath his skin. When he turns to the wall, in the room he shares with Iosif, his silent emotional fragility screams volumes.
Loren radiates weary resignation. Madame Rosa has witnessed and endured the worst the world has to offer, and survived by not merely burying her emotions, but denying them outright. Her feelings are so repressed, that when an unexpected half-smile creases her lips, the act seems to surprise her. And she’s tired: bone- and soul-tired.
And yet Loren’s regal bearing also shines; she hasn’t lost the flinty sparkle and feisty authority that characterized so much of her earlier film work. She’s the same force of nature, the same striking presence. Our first glimpse of her, early on — even with her back to the camera — and we know it’s Sophia Loren. It could be nobody else.
The dynamic between boy and matriarch begins to shift when the former realizes that Madame Rosa occasionally falls into motionless fugues, of which she later has no memory; she also withdraws, late at night, into some sort of basement “retreat” deep in the building’s depths. The boy realizes something profound: For the first time in his life, somebody needs his care and attention.
And — again, likely to his surprise — he’s willing to give it.
Ponti’s film gets its considerable emotional heft from the relationships and unexpected intimacies within this little circle. Zamora’s Lola is a cheerful, disarming presence: quick to laugh, forever trying to buoy Madame Rosa’s spirits. Lola’s successful effort to prompt her friend into a dance, early on, is beyond charming.
Karimi’s Hamil, in turn, is a patient and devout soul who — having agreed to let Momo “help” around the shop — gently instructs the boy on the importance and cultural significance of his Muslim Senegalese heritage. They bond while repairing a rug bearing the image of how Momo envisions the mother he barely recalls: as a protective lioness.
When Ponti reaches his third act, with its more serious turn, we’re fully invested in these characters; “poignant” doesn’t begin to cover what becomes quite powerful. At a time when our own real-world relationships are frayed by distance and separation, it’s nice to be reminded about the healing power of connection.
And while I’ve no desire to see Loren retire permanently, if this should prove to be her final starring role, it’s certainly memorable.
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