Whatsoeverly (2011)

Cetto La Qualunque, the Calabrian entrepreneur and aspiring mayor at the center of Qualunquemente, is a man who names his South American mistress "Thing" and cannot recall his own daughter's name. Antonio Albanese built the character for Italian television and brought him to the cinema in 2011, where the film was duly screened at Berlin. The plot follows Cetto as he returns from exile abroad to his hometown, learns that a decent man intends to run for mayor, and decides to run himself, mostly to stay out of prison.

The satire is broad and unapologetic. Cetto shoots at mannequins painted to resemble Black men, forces his timid son to abandon a girlfriend who fails his physical standards, and promises the electorate a supply of prostitutes alongside the abolition of taxes. He is racist, homophobic, and contemptuous of the disabled, and the film presents all of it as comedy of exposure. The camera does not lecture. It watches. The audience is trusted to find him repellent, which most will, and the production declines to append the corrective sermon a more anxious studio might have demanded.

A faint economic complaint sits buried in the material, since Cetto is a crony entrepreneur who treats politics as an extension of his own ledger, and the bought reporter and the hired campaign manager complete the portrait of a system greased by self-interest. That is where the social criticism begins and ends. Women exist as objects of his appetite, the migrant girlfriend is a caricature and not a character, and the film's politics remain those of a well-aimed sneer. It is a funny and frequently ugly piece of work, belonging to a tradition of Italian satire that trusts misanthropy to do the work of morality. The classification is straightforward: a low reading across the cultural-awareness instruments, with the needle twitching only for the venal entrepreneur and the occasional nudge of conscience.