Lasciati andare

'Lasciati Andare' ("Let Yourself Go") begins excellently, with the reliably brilliant Toni Servillio playing a jaded psychotherapist who takes his wife for granted even though the pair are formally separated. But after a health-scare he reluctantly takes on an excitable personal trainer and various forms of chaos ensue. Unfortunately, as the film continues, these episodes become both more outrageous and more generic - the earlier incidents are funnier because they're better grounded in the specifics of the character and the situation. Overall, it's mildly amusing rather than hysterical.

Urged by his doctor, a "stuffy" psychoanalyst (a fabulous as usually Toni Servillo) goes to the gym and meets a spicy female personal trainer who turns his life upside down, they will both grow and learn to reconnect to life among twist and turns taken along their new friendship.

This is a really well made and well put together movie. The characters are the strong point of this flick, especially the two protagonists. The first half is much like a character study, we get to know their lives and struggles. There is a huge "Woody Allen" vibe to this part of the story, especially the figure of the psychoanalyst seems very much like the NYC director in one of his many roles, a bit neurotic and a bit too conservative in his outlook to life. He will learn to open up to life once again with the help of his new lady friend. The second half takes a more adventurous turn and can appear a bit uneven but is ultimately still enjoyable, introducing equally likeable characters and tiding up nicely the loose ends.

Conventional comedy where it's a surprise to find white bearded Servillo doing Woody Allen. He's a Jewish psychoanalyst who is too mean to pay for a divorce from his appealing ex wife still living in the next flat and doing his laundry, in the block where the Observant neighbor leaves the lift door open on Sundays to avoid breaking shabbat, infuriating Tony. His patients, including Giacomo of Aldo, Giacomo and Giovanni fame, keep on turning up in the film's developments.

Tony's doctor tells him he needs to get into shape. In the gym Tony runs into sex pot Echegui running her jazzacise class and she convinces him he needs her as a personal trainer - predictable jokes.

Her whacked out sex life intrudes, with her black son setting fires, including one on Tony's jacket. Turnsout she is working Tony as part of the scheme where her psycho prisoner boy friend Marinelli wants to be hypnotised into remembering where he placed the jewel store robbery loot we saw him pace out and bury at the start of the film.

The piece is nicely made and bright enough, mixing Jewish jokes, shrink jokes and slapstick crook comedy but we've been there before an hoped they'd come up with a better vehicle for Servillo.