Actor-turned-director Anna Foglietta guides Alba Rohrwacher and Guido Caprino through the spaces between words in this standout from Venice's Orizzonti sidebar. Far too often, relationship dramas devolve into screaming matches with a predictable crescendo that exhausts both actors and audiences: They’re using words, but since few writers have the caustic wit of Edward Albee, what they say is more tiresome than trenchant. Perhaps because debuting director Anna Foglietta is first an actor, she understands that silences are more powerful than screeches, even more so when a couple want to express themselves but just can’t find the words.
This sensitivity to voids is revealed in the opening montage, consisting of empty rooms in university buildings, their vacant stillness a troubling indication of absence. It’s the perfect visualization of the empty-nest syndrome experienced by parents Erika (Rohrwacher) and Mauro (Caprino), bringing their only child Irene (Ksenia Borzak) to college. She’s probably the first member of the family to seek higher education, and mom and dad are super proud.
Once back home, they fall into their usual patterns: Mauro works in construction with his father Marcello (Elio De Capitani), and Erika is a supermarket cashier. Her days always had a structure that reflected her sense of purpose: she’d get up early each morning to bake a bundt cake for breakfast, check in on her mother Altea (Caterina Casini) after work to bring groceries, clean the house, cook the meals. She was useful, and being useful signified she had a role to fill that brought meaning to her life.
Now she’s nearly 45, her daughter is out of the house, and she finds herself suddenly adrift without the self-analytical tools to understand what she’s feeling. Being needed is her reason for waking up in the morning, but Irene is away and self-sufficient Altea is busy with her friends. Perhaps if she could talk about her feelings with Mauro, they’d be able to negotiate the changes together, but notwithstanding a deep love, they’re not people who’ve ever talked about their personal psychology.
Unequipped to find the words that could identify her state of mind, Erika begins to fall apart. The building blocks of “A Common Story” can be found in countless feminist texts describing the lack of self-worth felt by women whose circumscribed lives seem meaningless when their perceived usefulness is over. But what about the women unable to articulate those emotions, who don’t have access to such texts and for whom the words “mental health provider” might as well be gibberish?
Erika is incapable of understanding her depression because she can’t name it, and without the vocabulary she’s unable to share her despair with Mauro, who watches his wife’s disintegration with bewilderment. As a man, he’s meant to hold everything together; after all, he’s in construction, he fixes things. Making matters worse, his father’s constant barbs have emasculated him, and when he learns that Marcello sold the business without letting him know, it feels like his role as the anchor of the family has been smashed.
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