HOLY CANNOLI
THREE STARS A pastry afficiando is wrestling with temporal temptation. The Pope drops by to help out.
COMEDY DRAMA ITALY Italian #HOLYCANNOLI Starring Pif, Carlos Hipólito
Religion and romance have long made for uneasy bedfellows, but HOLY CANNOLI finds a novel way to bring the two together: through Italian cakes. Inspired by a meeting with the Pope, Pif’s comedy-drama considers what happens when earthly appetites and heavenly intervention become difficult to distinguish. It’s an appealing premise, even if the finished film struggles to sustain such a sweet concept.
At the centre is real estate agent who falls hard for a pastry chef, complicating his already fervent devotion to baked goods. Matters become considerably stranger when he begins experiencing visions of the Pope, apparently summoned by his enthusiastic consumption of sciu, those Sicilian delicacies whose pleasures may have consequences far beyond the waistline.
Is this a genuine encounter with the divine, or merely the result of an extravagant sugar rush? The film cheerfully entertains both possibilities, exploring the relationship between religious faith, secular desire and the pursuit of pleasure.
There’s a pleasing irreverence to the premise, along with some thoughtful observations about the ways people seek meaning in their lives. Pif, the Italian one-name celebrity who serves as writer, director and leading man, has clearly invested himself wholeheartedly in the project. Perhaps too wholeheartedly. The central conceit is largely exhausted within an hour, leaving another sixty minutes to fill with variations on ideas that have been quite adequately explored.
The film’s treatment of baked delicacies doesn’t always help. Where other foodie films use texture and anticipation to activate taste buds, HOLY CANNOLI repeatedly lingers on close-ups of its protagonist virtually inhaling cake. The effect is more vulgar than sensual, turning an expression of pleasure into something faintly off-putting.
A shorter, sharper film might have made more of the intriguing tension between spiritual belief and physical desire. Here the insights are thoroughly cooked while we're still waiting for the oven timer to ding. That said, there is enough charm and ingenuity in the idea to make HOLY CANNOLI worth a look even if it is more sugar hit than a nourishing main course.
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