Butler's Cinema Scene

Ibrahima Gueye, Sophia Loren

“THE LIFE AHEAD” My rating: B-

93 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

The pleasure of watching Sophia Loren’s return to the screen (still charismatic at 86) is somewhat tempered by the so-so execution of “The Life Ahead.”

Written (with Ugo Chiti and Fabio Natale) and directed by Edoardo Ponti (Loren’s son), this effort offers all sorts of potential for heartstring tugging. The plot, after all, centers on an orphaned boy and an old lady who takes him in.

And yet I was left hoping for more.

Madam Rosa (Loren) is a former prostitute who now takes care of the children of other hookers in her Naples apartment. She dishes tough love when required, and is paid for her services, but clearly cares for the kids in her charge.

Enter Momo (newcomer Ibrahima Gueye), a Senegalese immigrant whose mother has died. Rosa reluctantly takes on the moody, defiant tweener at the behest of a doctor who serves their slum community.

Momo is rebellious and profane and tries to bully the other boy (Iosif Diego Privu) living with Rosa.  Before long the streetwise little punk has landed a gig peddling drugs.

Ibrahima Gueye, Iosif Diego Privu

But he gradually warms to Rosa, who is clearly having cognitive issues.  Occasionally she turns catatonic; even when more or less in control of her faculties Rosa  may spend an entire day in the cellar shrine she has created to honor her pre-WW2 childhood.

Turns out she is Jewish and as a girl survived a stint at Auschwitz. Her entire life has been dictated by early loss…which is something Momo instinctively understands.

“The Life Ahead” has been adapted from Romain Gary’s 1975 novel The Life Before Us, also the source of the 1977 movie “Madam Rosa” (with Simone Signoret in the title role). Perhaps this is why I found the picture  predictable and all-too-methodical in its emotional trolling; viewers not familiar with the earlier movie may very well have a different take on things.

That said, the performances are really good.  Loren beautifully underplays Rosa and young Gueye, in his acting debut, is a natural.  I was also  particularly taken with the trans actress Abril Zamora, who plays the flamboyant hooker mother of one of the kids.

| Robert W. Butler