The film adaptation of a highly successful literary novel is always a gamble. Cognetti's book, winner of the Strega Prize, is a mix of feelings and thoughts set in a remote mountain village, which is why the challenge could have been even more difficult.

Instead Groeningen and Vandermeersch, already authors of the heartbreaking Alabama Monroe which brought them to the threshold of the Oscar for best foreign film, objectively win the challenge by managing to stay away from easy environmentalist temptations and returning the harsh life of the mountaineer, the one without shortcuts and with little satisfaction other than peace.

Why the directors chose the 4:3 format for filming when much of the amazement comes from the images of the peaks, and a more panoramic format would certainly have increased the effect, remains inexplicable and partly unforgivable, but the film works anyway. Could it be precisely this format that amplifies the sense of protection of the protagonist's friend? Does this format recall the gorges of the valleys?

Thanks to the excellent synergy of two of the most important Italian actors of their generation, the story of an almost impossible friendship takes shape on the screen. Marinelli truly perfect. Without forgetting the performances of the kids, well directed and very natural.

A somewhat surprising Jury Prize at the last Cannes Film Festival, it is a good film that convinces throughout its Italian part while it frays in the short part set in Nepal. It remains a work worth seeing in the theater and which differentiates the current Italian panorama.