Zoe is a sweet little bon bon of a romantic comedy fantasy that aims to charm rather than challenge. The story follows Zoe (Emanuela Galliussi), a 42 year-old woman who lives a life of giddy impulse and pleasure. She’s happy enough, has a bestie, Sara (Francesca Olivi), who grounds her, but real life is creeping up. Zoe’s work-obsessed father wants to hand over the family business, her biological clock is ticking away, and her longtime boyfriend Luca (Daniele Natali) is about to drop some major news. After one hell of a day, Zoe parties herself into a drunken stupor, meets a child wizard Mattia (Jacopo Cullin), and is thrown into a wild adventure that forces her to consider what she really wants out of life.
Grounded in a sort of magical realism, Zoe traverses four countries and as many lives. Each life presenters her with a new life, a new situationship, and a new lesson to learn. First she wakes up in Ibiza as a yoga instructor where a young, brainless beefcake is chasing her affections. Next she’s the successful wife of a famous pop star James (Jaspal Binning), where she has to break the news that she is pregnant. In the final scenario she is a French photographer who has inadvertently become a bit of an interloper between her assistant Claude (Cédric Ido), and his girlfriend Juliet (Chanel Victor). We jump from country to country, life to life where Zoe is confronted with living her own fantastic aspirations is search of what she truly wants out of life. But will Zoe ever really learn who she actually is?
Writer, co-director, and star Galliussi works overtime and then some to entertain. Her joyous energy is the lifeblood of this movie and its single strongest attribute when others falter. Taking a huge swing, Galliussi puts herself at the center of a film where she has to perform, direct, speak four different languages and dialects, and win over audiences. No small task, and she mostly nails it. When the story isn’t delivering plot points we are dazzled by the eye candy. Producer, editor, and cinematographer Dean Matthew Ronalds is sure to include the beautiful scenery of the Spanish beaches, the Paris cityscape, and bustling London, giving a s much of a travelougue feel to the film as he does the warm glow of a romcom.
The film has its faults to be sure, mostly in the story, but the movie is far too much fun to truly fault it for. The ending, leaves some questions unanswered. However at that point we have been trained to trust in Zoe’s whims and that everything will end up just fine.
Like a cool aperol spritz on a hot day Zoe is a sort of effervescent pleasure that goes down easy and offers a little kick. It’s not constructed to sustain any real examination, but to present comical lessons and romantic entanglements. You can rest assured that Zoe, indeed finds happiness at the end of her magical escapades. But it’s not the destination, so much as the journey that we are expected to enjoy.
7/10
DIRECTORS: Emanuela Galliussi, Dean Matthew Ronalds
Writer: Emanuela Galliussi
