Don’t Waste Your Time, Johnny!

Colour, 35 mm
Italy, 2007, 95 min
IP – International premiere
Section: Variety Critics’ Choice

Synopsis

A young musician in mid-’70s Italy floats through life in the visually accomplished Don’t Waste Your Time, Johnny!, thesp Fabrizio Bentivoglio’s first feature as director. It’s 1976 in the Neapolitan city of Caserta, and Faustino (newcomer Antimo Merolillo), fresh out of school, has to prove he’s employed as a guitarist, and his widowed mother’s sole support, to avoid military service. But coaxing a contract out of slippery music manager Raffaele is proving difficult. Faustino plays for a hodgepodge outfit led by alcoholic Mimmo Falasco (Toni Servillo); but when faded ’60s bandleader Augusto Riverberi (Bentivoglio) comes to town, Raffaele makes Faustino the maestro’s personal assistant. A little hustling by Raffaele gets Riverberi & Co. a decent gig, so they hire an amateur crooner renamed Gerry Como. But Raffaele runs out with the gate, and Riverberi returns to Milan, leaving Faustino, nicknamed “Johnny” by the maestro, still without a contract.