Nanni Moretti’s latest film “A Brighter Tomorrow” is unusually angry and bitter compared to many of Moretti’s mild and gentle works such as “Caro diario” (1993). As a seasoned filmmaker who does not approve much of the current cinema trends, he has a lot of things to grunt and complain about in front of the camera from the beginning to the end, but the result is unfortunately rather dull and polemic in my trivial opinion despite several whimsical comic moments you can expect from Moretti.

As he has frequently done in his movies during last 30 years, Moretti plays someone probably not so far from himself. This time, he plays a middle-aged left-wing filmmaker named Giovanni, and the story begins with how Giovanni is preparing for his latest film along with several crew members of his including his wife/producer Paola (Margherita Buy, who was excellent in Moretti’s previous film “Mia Madre” (2015)). His new movie is about a Hungarian circus troupe invited to a little Italian town shortly after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was started, and its story also focuses on the relationship development between the two prominent local communist party members in the town.

Just like many other movie productions, the production of Giovanni’s new film soon becomes quite frustrating for not only him but also his crew and cast members. While his lead actress often clashes with him for her occasional improvisations, the crew member responsible for many different period props often annoys Giovanni for his glaring frequent mistakes, and his bumbling French colleague/producer, played by Mathieu Amalric, turns out to be much more unreliable than Giovanni and others imagined.

And there is also a big crisis in Giovanni’s private late. As shown from a little moment with her psychiatrist, Giovanni’s wife has been losing more of her patience with her husband, and she actually begins to consider seriously about leaving him soon. Because he needs her support as usual while beginning to shoot his latest film, she chooses to stand by him for a while at least, but then she only finds herself becoming more frustrated than before due to her husband’s ego and self-absorbance.

This negative aspect of Giovanni is evident when he comes to the set of another movie produced by his wife. Right from the beginning of the shooting, he shows a strong disapproval on the gratuitous depiction of violence, and this subsequently leads to one annoying scene where he interrupts and then stops the shooting of the last scene to the dismay of his wife and her director. If such a thing happens in real life, Giovanni would get instantly kicked out of the set within a few seconds, but he is somehow allowed to make his point again and again for more than several hours, and that is surely frustrating to watch for us as well as every other person on the set.

To be frank with you, I would tell Giovanni that he should mind his business first, considering that how the production of his latest film keeps getting into one trouble after another. While his actress continues to stick to her impromptu improvisation, there are also other problems including the one involved with animals to play those animals of the Hungarian circus troupe in Giovanni’s films, and then there eventually comes a serious finance problem which may terminate the production once for all.

Getting cornered more and more by the increasingly production problems, Giovanni eventually considers getting some financial help from Netflix, but he soon gets more frustrated to see how much he will have to compromise in exchange of getting enough money to restart the production. Needless to say, Moretti does not pull any punch at all in showing his contempt toward Netflix and many other streaming services out there, but this scene feels rather blunt and hollow without leaving much impression on the whole.

At least, the movie sometimes shows some whimsical moments to enjoy as going back and forth between Giovanni’s movie and its production process. While things eventually get rolling to the relief of everyone on the set, the mood becomes a bit more relaxed than before, and there is a sudden moment of music and dance as Giovanni is reminded again that he still can go on despite all those current problems in his life and career.

Now this may remind you of many other movies about filmmaking ranging from Federico Fellini’s “8 1/2” (1963) to François Truffaut’s “Day for Night” (1973), but Moretti’s movie looks rather middling compared to these two great films as often failing to balance itself between its two different narratives. Despite Moretti’s usual amiable presence, his character is sometimes a bit too obnoxious and self-absorbed to care about, and the narrative of his character’s movie and its production process is also too superficial to engage us. While Moretti tries to show some gesture of hope and good will around the end of his film, that does not mesh well with the rest of the film, and that causes more dissatisfaction for us.

In conclusion, “A Brighter Tomorrow” is not as successful as intended, but it shows us at least that Moretti is still willing to continue as usual despite being over 70 at present. Sure, I would rather recommend his better films such as “The Son’s Room” (2001), but it is certainly nice to see him keeping working as before, and I sincerely hope that whatever will come next from him will be more enjoyable than this sour piece of ranting.