«Call my agent», neither soul nor passion in a series light years away from reality (Rating 6 and 1/2)- Corriere.it

The Italian edition of the witty French series “Dieci per cent”, or “Call my agent” (who asks for that percentage in contracts), is out, consumed without screaming crowds or peak audiences, beautifully copied by Luca Ribuoli, produced by Palomar for Sky (now streaming on Now) and written by Lisa Nu Sultan. While walking in the footsteps of the French production which however has three seasons to its credit and therefore more prodigal of details on the intimate life of the protagonists, the Italian series has no soul or passion, it struggles to take off, it has an air of falsehood inside, perhaps because today Italian cinema is struggling to be an industry and our market is in an epochal crisis, while the French go to the cinema and also to see their films, so everything is more credible.

Even if the cinema crisis does not matter of the series which, as is well known, tells the whims and misunderstandings of a press agency and public relations for film stars, with a guest star who embellishes each episode, let’s say, the story, the melancholy of our situation hovers since in the ‘air. It is immediately noticeable from the posters hanging in the office that we have to refer to the “Dolce vita” and the “Girl with the gun”, rightly so, few recent titles are in plain sight. So all that bustle, that turning of clauses and contracts, seems completely out of place, takes on a pathetic air and the personal relationships, the human factors between the various employees of the agency remain entangled in the script, while in the Parisian series there is it was a mix of love hate and funny and very gender fluid developments, as well as the casting of two actresses who are now real movie stars, Laure Calamy and Camille Cotton.

And so when the so-called homegrown stars arrive to interpret themselves or themselves, one feels a little embarrassed also because the ad hoc finds for individual stars are often poor in narrative: how can the good Favino be forced to pretend to be possessed by Fidel Castro (the patient Anna Ferzetti takes care of it)? Why get Stefano Accorsi into space-time trouble, who has to become double but at least makes good use of the cars made in France that he already promotes in commercials. Well done Paola Cortellesi grappling with Etruria and its queen Tanaquil, nice Guzzanti who rightly wouldn’t want to team up with the cumbersome Emanuela Fanelli (we’re talking about the character, who by the way doesn’t exist in the original), while Matilda De Angelis stumbles into a cruel media squabble for which she is accused of racism.

It is better to converge, as many have written even with devout exaggeration, on the performance of Paolo Sorrentino, a client of the utmost respect who confesses in a monologue that he now wants to film the life of a female pope and to think of Ivana Spagna as a star. In this coming and going, with the same music as the other production, there remains the little credible love at first sight between the ruthless Lea (Sara Drago) and the female finance officer, while the slyly clumsy Gabriele (Maurizio Lastrico) books the heart for the girl in reception who will perhaps be launched, but she also has a single assistant, Francesco (Pierpaolo Puglisi), an expert in little moves like the gays of the 50s.

All these are anxious because, after the boss has left them for exotic lands and a perpetual vacation, they are afraid that the shares will be taken over by Vittorio, an unscrupulous agent (he has a secret daughter who is employed and hidden) and with a wealthy wife, while the veteran of the group Elvira goes around with a little dog named Marcello (as here, Mastroianni). The best are the elders of the CMA agency, Michele Di Mauro, a theater actor versed in comedy, drama and a specialist in the grotesque, and Marzia Ubaldi, a truly veteran of show business. But, having met many cinema and theater agents, starting with the well-known Enrico Lucherini, patriarch of the genre and inventor of a trade, I can say that the whole series is light years away from reality.