"Il rumore delle cose" by Paolo Genovese opens the 2026 Rome Film Festival The film, adapted from Genovese's novel of the same name, is nonetheless the usual Italian drama

The cinema of Paolo Genovese is popular, in the best sense of the word. It tells ordinary stories, creates characters in whom audiences can see themselves or, better yet, idealize themselves. He has understood that the ensemble strategy can bring together enough actors to attract as many viewers as possible, each drawn to the cinema by one of their favorites. And that replacing the portrayal of emotions with a simpler approach is an effective way to reach people's hearts. Knowing one's tools, however, does not always mean knowing how to use them. With Il rumore delle cose nuove, something has gone irreparably wrong, as the Italian director and screenwriter's usual solutions are pushed to excess, spilling over into the least effective kind of drama.

The film, which opened the 21st edition of the Rome Film Fest, is based on the novel of the same name written by Genovese himself, who adapts it together with Ugor Artibani, following the story of three couples who are supposed to be strangers to one another, yet are bound by an invisible thread called fate. So invisible, in fact, that it takes a real effort to believe in all the coincidences and chance encounters that interweave the characters' lives. Some shaped by their own choices, some happening by accident — the very thing to which it is far too easy to entrust every narrative twist and combination in the film. The result is a story that aims to make us reflect on the power of fortuitous circumstance, yet achieves the opposite, leaving us thinking more than once that not only does everything seem improbable, but that it is, in fact, unreal.

The writing is the main problem with Il rumore delle cose nuove, inevitably leading to questionable performances from the cast — given the story and the lines they are handed. The cast includes Emanuela Fanelli, Claudia Pandolfi, Vittoria Puccini, Stefano Accorsi, Lino Musella, and Edoardo Pesce. Strip away the aphoristic one-liners and the emphasis with which the actors deliver them, and very little remains by way of genuine reflection on contingency in a dramatic film where every character aspires to be an archetype pushed so far to the extreme as to become a cliché — one that trivializes even the important issues it raises. Chief among these is the abusive relationship between the characters played by Fanelli and Pesce, alongside an Italian-flavored reworking of the far more enveloping and disorienting Closer by Mike Nichols, reproduced here with little success by Stefano Accorsi and Claudia Pandolfi.

Underpinning the aphorisms delivered by the cast is the score by Daprinski, which is exactly what one might expect given the film's premise: mournful, tearful, kicking in at the precise moment the viewer is meant to be stirred, moved, or reminded that what the characters are about to say is something important. That cinema disguises itself as real life while remaining cinema is an aspiration these kinds of films strive for — but it is worth remembering that fiction is a delicate material, and one must take care that it does not become fake. Il rumore delle cose nuove, however, feels fake in every respect: the connections between characters, the intensity of their inner turmoil, the performances of its cast, and unfortunately also the worst wigs seen in recent Italian cinema.

A sublimation that the film seeks but never achieves, one that perhaps believes too much in itself to question itself — yet it is precisely in uncertainty that truth is found, and Genovese's film, despite professing it, seems to have none. If everything must break in order to move forward, as the film itself tells us, then may Il rumore delle cose nuove serve as a fracture from which Paolo Genovese can rebuild. To do something original, something different, to step outside the comfort zone to which the Italian filmmaker is now far too anchored — and to try something that sounds, as the title suggests, truly new.