L'Amore Molesto

L’Amore Molesto is Mario Martone’s adaptation of the Elena Ferrante novel from 1992 (Nasty Love in English). The film is an atmospheric mystery thriller with clear ties to the works of Alfred Hitchcock and Pedro Almodóvar. At the same time, readers will recognise a lot of the themes that make such lasting impressions on them from her novels: Depictions of desire and shame, of strong women and controlling men, and the ambiguous relationship we have to memories of our own pasts.

Delia is an artist who returns to her hometown of Naples, to attend her mother’s funeral. Suicide is cited as cause of death, but Delia cannot make sense of it. Her mother was a joyful and high-spirited woman, why would she kill herself? Delia vows to uncover the truth of what really happened in the days leading up to her mother’s untimely death. Her detective work takes her all the way back to her childhood, and to traumatic memories which were long buried.