«Glass onion» is a long yawn (score 5), more pleasant «Matilda» (7), «Christmas at all costs» can be skipped (4)- Corriere.it

Christmas on Netflix. How did it go? Apart from the two Pinocchios mentioned and one of which goes beyond the fairytale dimension to enter the political one, there are three titles, among the many distributed on the platform. The first, «Glass onion – Knives out» it had a brief preview in theaters, passed without advertising, therefore invisible, and was then redone on video. It is the second installment, set on landscapes from a Greek island, of the adventures of detective Benoit Blanc who, despite being played by the latest James Bond Daniel Craig, is very different from 007, more like the conceptual heroes of Agatha Christie’s cause and effect relationship and in fact the crime scene is all in the house with windows open on glamorous Hellenic landscapes. But the matter is much more insipid than in «Invitation to dinner with crime», the attention never takes off, finally it is a long yawn despite the cast.

Pleasant is instead the second film reduction, this time in a musical, of the children’s novel by Roal Dahl («The Chocolate Factory») «Matilda» which already in 96 had inspired Danny De Vito for «mythical Matilda 6». Here, the same subject but enlivened by collective numbers of dance and song, with the unfortunate Matilda who, a child born and rejected by a trashy, peasant and treacherous family, manages to access the school, after having read Faulkner and Dostoevskji by herself, thanks to a teacher Miss Honey, African-American related by kinship to the diabolical and perfidious principal, Miss Trinciabue (an unrecognizable Emma Thompson amusement). She will bear the worst things, like her companions, until the good guys win and the music can unleash itself in a final scene of rides like Grease, with impetus, after having undergone legends and even horror fears.

The director is Matthew Warchus inspired by the musical by Dennis Kellye and Tim Minchin which has been all the rage in London and Broadway since 2010 with dozens of awards, the music is by Minchin and Nightingale, little Alisha Weir is the center of compassion and attention, but luckily she has her prodigious psychic powers that will lead her to victory. For the needs of film times, some beautiful numbers of the musical have been cut (put the one on the swings, the grow up) but the system remains and the connivance with such products is the only guarantee of participation.

No coexistence, and we are on the third and final film, it is instead possible with the Netflix cinepanettone “Christmas at all costs” directed by Giovanni Bognetti, author of unmemorable little comedies and here committed to reviving the non-regreted glories of the Christmas genre of Boldi and De Sica, with a sentimental addition that makes all really indigestible even for the very poor quality of the young cast. The elderly resist: Fioretta Mari eats everyone with a joke, Iaia Forte stays for a moment but is nice, Christian this time is even measured and Finocchiaro, in Angela’s sense, has no problem getting on the podium for professional sympathy and innate sense of humour. Unfortunately, the opportunities to use it with this screenplay are very few: it concerns a couple of elderly parents who live as provincials and see little of the two children who play precious and threaten not to visit them even for Christmas, until the idea of a fake inheritance brings them closer to the family, in an ending that denounces pettiness and meanness but without any elegance but throwing itself on the usual things, on predictable jokes foreseen from afar, without any inventiveness, provoking in the end, precisely against the spirit of Christmas, a strong melancholy: but are we sure that we still need the cinepanettone? The more generous say it was a mirror of the worst Italy, maybe it’s true, as well as trashy cinema, but now that we’ve got rid of it, De Laurentiis deals with football, the historic couple hasn’t existed for years and the historical cycles of Christmas cinema continue and change, you can easily move on, move on to Epiphany.