Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
During a trip to Sicily in 1920, Luigi Pirandello meets two gravediggers-turned-playwrights rehearsing a play with their amateur dramatics. Pirandello takes an interest in the odd couple, having been suffering from writer's block while working on his eventual masterpiece, Six Characters in Search of an Author.
Strangeness (La stranezza) is a clever and witty Italian comedy-drama that imagines the circumstances inspiring Pirandello's masterpiece. Its novelty is its strongest suit — the meta-theatrical conceit of two bumbling gravedigger-playwrights inadvertently sparking one of literature's great modernist works is genuinely inventive and singular. The film cleverly blurs reality, fiction, and theatrical performance in a distinctly Pirandellian spirit. Acting is solid, with Ficarra and Picone delivering warm comic performances alongside Toni Servillo's dignified Pirandello, though none push into exceptional territory. Cinematography is competent and atmospheric in its Sicilian setting without being visually distinguished. The plot is engaging and pleasingly constructed but follows a fairly predictable arc once established. The ending, while satisfying in its circularity, doesn't fully capitalize on the emotional or philosophical depth the premise promises.