There's Still Tomorrow: A Heartbreaking, Hilarious Triumph of Cinema

You have to step outside your comfort zone every once in a while. That common advice is true in almost every area of life, and movies are no exception. If you’ve read my reviews before, you know my tastes lean very heavily towards what are commonly called “genre” films–horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and action–but when I first heard about There’s Still Tomorrow, I decided to take a leap of faith and give it a shot. It’s about as far from my typical wheelhouse as anything I’ve ever seen in a theater, so this was a real stretch for me. I walked into my screening with little more than a hope and a prayer that I wouldn’t regret the decision, and now that I’ve finally seen the movie, I’m happy to report that I was not disappointed.

There’s Still Tomorrow was directed and co-written by Paola Cortellesi, and Cortellesi also stars in the film alongside Romana Maggiora Vergano, Emanuela Fanelli, Valerio Mastandrea, Francesco Centorame, Vinicio Marchioni, and Giorgio Colangeli. It’s a black-and-white Italian dramedy set shortly after the close of World War II, and it follows a middle-aged woman named Delia who lives with her husband Ivano and their three children.

Plotwise, there’s not much to say about this movie. It focuses more on the characters and the themes than on the story, so you’d be hard-pressed to find a consistent narrative thread that runs through the entire film. It’s largely just an examination of Delia’s daily life and the crosses she has to bear as a woman in post-war Italy, so audiences used to mainstream Hollywood filmmaking might struggle with this slower, more meandering approach to the art. But if you’re okay just sitting back and following these people as they go about their normal, unassuming existence, you’ll find a treasure trove of beauty and meaning.

Let’s start with the performances. They’re the heart and soul of this movie, and almost everybody in the cast is fantastic. For instance, Valerio Mastandrea plays the ill-tempered, hyper-macho husband who alternates between hitting his wife and insulting her in front of the kids, and if you’ve ever met anybody like that, you’ll totally buy this guy’s performance. Mastandrea carries himself with the gruff, arrogant air of a longtime abuser, so even when he’s not actively assailing his wife, you’ll loathe him and desperately want him to get his just desserts.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Paola Cortellesi plays Delia as a tender, loving woman who just wants what’s best for her family, but she also infuses the character with a strength and resilience someone like Ivano could only dream of. Her husband has led a relatively easy life, but she’s had to endure years of abuse and mistreatment both at home and from society at large. On top of the beatings and verbal assaults she receives from Ivano, she also earns less at work simply because she’s a woman, and her lecherous father-in-law touches her inappropriately whenever she gets close to him.

The poor woman has very little respite from the misogynistic patriarchy that permeates her world, and Cortellesi beautifully manifests the character’s inner fortitude as well as the constant pain that stubbornly refuses to leave her side. She almost makes you feel that torment yourself, so you’ll come to love Delia and sympathize with her plight almost immediately after you meet her.

And at its core, that’s what There’s Still Tomorrow is really about. It’s an examination of the hardships women had to endure in that era of Italian history (and, by extension, the struggles women all over the world still experience today), and the film approaches that theme from a few different angles. It obviously focuses primarily on Delia’s story, but there’s also a subplot involving her daughter, Marcella, that lulls you into a sense of cozy security before hitting you with the disturbing truth. It’s a clever sneak attack that shows you just how widespread this misogyny really is, so in case you didn’t get the point with Delia, you’re sure to see it with her daughter.

As you can probably guess, that pervasive abuse and mistreatment can begin to feel pretty heavy after a while, so I’m glad this movie is a comedy as well as a drama. The jokes had me and the small crowd at my screening laughing out loud throughout the film’s entire two-hour runtime, so no matter how dark the story got, it never became oppressive. In fact, the overall experience was surprisingly lighthearted. On the whole, this movie is just as fun as it is heartbreaking, so it allows you to have your cake and eat it too.

That being said, the story isn’t all doom and gloom. There’s Still Tomorrow ends on an unexpectedly hopeful note, and I really wish I could talk about it in detail. But that would ruin the surprise, so I can only dance around it with vague generalities. Suffice it to say, this conclusion is a breath of fresh air in a cinematic world where half the population has their dignity trampled upon every single day, and director Paola Cortellesi executes the finale with such triumphant joy that you won’t just walk out of the theater. You’ll float out, and you’ll be inspired to do your part to make the world a better place.

Seriously, this is one of the most beautiful endings I’ve ever seen in a film, so in my book, it cements There’s Still Tomorrow as an instant classic. I’m so glad I went outside my comfort zone and gave this movie a shot, so even if it’s outside your typical wheelhouse too, I highly recommend checking it out anyway. It’s hilarious, heartbreaking, and moving in all the right ways, so if you're a fan of great cinema, I think you’ll love it just as much as I did.