Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
Ernesto and Filippo, two high school teachers, couldn’t be more different: Filippo is a cheerful liberal who is constantly online. Handsome and youthful, he is a serial seducer on the social networks. Ernesto, instead is a stern conservative, rigorously computerless. He is probably the last person around who still has a first-generation cell phone and his teaching methods are very traditional. They used to be best friends but an unresolved fight kept them far apart, until the day fate intervened and they found themselves teaching at the same school. Their opposite viewpoints will soon and inevitably lead to a new clash. The internet will force them to deal with their past, which resurfaces in the shape of Nina, a young woman who conducts an experiment on them: Filippo must try to leave the world of Internet and Ernesto must try to enter it.
Ignorance Is Bliss is a fairly standard Italian comedy built around a well-worn odd-couple premise — technophobe vs. tech-addict — with a predictable arc of reconciliation. The plot relies heavily on familiar fish-out-of-water gags and doesn't develop its social commentary beyond surface level. Acting appears serviceable and carries the comedic beats adequately for the genre. Cinematography is functional and unremarkable, typical of mid-budget Italian comedies. Novelty is low given how derivative the central conceit feels; the internet-vs-tradition theme had been explored more freshly elsewhere. The ending resolves things predictably without much earned emotional weight, in line with the film's modest ambitions.