Genre: Comedy

Language: Italian with English Subtitles

Director: Alessandro D’Alatri

Cast: Sergio Rubini, Margherita Buy, Paolo Bonolis, Stefania Rocca, Elena Santarelli, Michele Placido

Released: 2006

Duration: 95 Minutes

Rating: M contains offensive language and sexual themes

Distribution: TF1 International

Another of those Christmas movies, so popular in Italy, and to judge from the response at last year’s festival to ‘Christmas in love’, very popular in New Zealand too. This one is from Alessandro D’Alatri, the director of ‘Casomai’, hit of the 2003 festival, with a stellar cast (Rubini, Buy, Rocca & Placido)

In Rome, the city of politics and show business, the story is about the "moderate" Minister Bonfili, played by Paolo Bonolis (a real life TV host), who recalls the tics and voice of Italian comedy's master Alberto Sordi. Bonfili is writing a new law about the solidarity of the family. But while he has a lovely wife (Stefania Rocca) and two children, his loyal chauffeur Mariano (Sergio Rubini) has to help him keep his relationship with a TV starlet (Elena Santarelli an Italian ‘survivor-star’) secret.

Everything is going well until a scandal threatens to sink the politician’s career. He decides to offload his mistress onto Mariano, a simple man, devoted to his work and his family. Mariano finds himself caught up in a life that he never imagined, balanced precariously between the jet-set crowd and his own family’s problems.

But how much can the Minister ask Mariano to avoid a scandal? And if you get caught cheating, how will the people around you react? The answers aren't easy at all.

Combining the ‘foot in the mouth’ prone character of Bonifili, with the deadpan humour of Mariano, played so well by Rubini, the film takes you from one crazy scene to the next. A cut above the ‘cine-panettoni’ usually associated with Christmas movies.