‘Trick,’ Director Mario Martone
Announcing the Naples shoot of Trick earlier this year, Martone offered an aoff-hand, entirely Italian logline: “Naples, a house, a grandfather, a four-year-old grandson. Enough of a synopsis?”
Adapted with Ippolita di Majo from Domenico Starnone’s novel — translated into English by Jhumpa Lahiri — the chamber piece unfolds almost entirely within an apartment and its balcony over a few days.
The tale builds up an unexpected duel between Toni Servillo’s Daniele Mallarico, a celebrated illustrator long accustomed to solitude, and his grandson, played by Lorenzo Perrotta.
Serena Rossi and Leonardo Lidi are the boy’s parents.
It’s the seventh Martone-Servillo collaboration, and Martone won Venice’s Grand Jury Prize with his 1992 debut Death of a Neapolitan Mathematician.
Servillo is the Volpi Cup winner for Sorrentino’s last year’s La grazia.
The film wrapped production in the spring, which makes the timeline tight — but after Martone’s recent detours to Cannes for Nostalgia and Fuori, the home turf of the Lido beckons.
