Loose Cannons

As the director of films like ‘Hamam’, ‘Facing Window’ and ‘A Perfect Day’, Ferzan Ozpetek has established a track record of nuanced comic dramas about contemporary European characters negotiating points of transition and uncertainty in their lives. In his latest multistranded comedy of errors and sexual identity, the focus is on Tomasso (Riccardo Scamarcio), son of a pasta-making Puglian clan, whose plans to come out to his traditional family are derailed when his older brother steals his thunder. ‘Loose Cannons’ looks sideways to Tomasso’s siblings, friends and acquaintances and back to his grandmother’s early life, exploring a range of dilemmas with humour and sensitivity as its dozen-odd characters try to find their own ways of weighing social propriety and family obligation against self-fulfilment – a balancing act made trickier for Tomasso when his boyfriend and mates arrive from Rome. The feel is somewhat cloistered and the pace rarely gets the pulse racing but this is engaging and affecting stuff, handsomely shot and well acted: Ilaria Occhini is a stand-out as the grandmother.