Critic Reviews

This being an Italian film, and Gianni being such a hapless, kindhearted aspiring Lothario, make this perhaps the sweetest movie ever made about a guy trying to cheat on his wife.

Mr. Di Gregorio wrote the screenplay with Valerio Attanasio, and this movie is a richer variation of his small, exquisite 2010 film, "Mid-August Lunch."

On the surface, The Salt of Life may seem like a movie made just for old folks. The trick is that it really is about the youth that stays with you, even when your aging body is working hard to convince you otherwise.

Rueful, funny and wise, The Salt of Life is a comedy not of errors but of the tiniest of missteps. A warm yet melancholy film of quiet yet inescapable charm, it has a feeling for character and personality that couldn't be more delicious.

The breeziness of The Salt Of Life disguises a barbed consideration of mortality and being written off, becoming part of the scenery in later life - just another elderly man with a dog, watching the world go by.

This is a movie about a man who is past his shelf life. Sooner or later, he'll end up sitting in front of that cafe with the other guys. He knows it.

The film is full of low-key but telling observations, mostly about Gianni's plight but also about modern life in general.

In The Salt of Life, the actor-writer-director again plays his own alter ego, and gives us another deceptively small, vaguely autobiographical story with universal resonance, in more technically assured packaging.

Di Gregorio's dialogue and performers are once again marked by a spontaneity and ease; who else working today treats so-called "middle age" with such jocular honesty?

Di Gregorio's performance sets the tone of dim hope and quiet forbearance, telling the story through reactions: an ever-accommodating smile that shades into a wince; sparkling, heavy-lidded eyes betrayed by vexed brows.