Verdone directs, stars in midlife dating comedy

(ANSA) - Rome, January 8 - Italian actor and director Carlo Verdone, whose career in TV and film has already spanned more than 40 years, is back with a new comedy, "Benedetta Follia", set to hit 700 Italian theatres on January 11.
    In the film, Verdone directs and stars as Guglielmo, the owner of a prestigious shop selling religious items in the Eternal City. Early on, Guglielmo's wife of 25 years (played by Lucrezia Lante della Rovere) tells him that she's leaving him for a woman.
    That sends Guglielmo on the search for both a new shop clerk, as well as a new post-marriage life. The film costars Ilenia Pastorelli in the role of Luna, a young, brash working-class woman who applies for the job at Guglielmo's shop.
    Luna brings a new energy and vitality into his life with her exuberance and introduces him to the world of online dating.
    In the meantime he manages to keep his shop running, fitting corpulent cardinals with their robes and religious wares.
    In the press conference for the film, Verdone, who was born in Rome in 1950, said he wants to show Rome "as I'd like to see it".
    In Luna's company, Verdone falls into a series of misadventures, including trying ectasy for the first time, under false pretenses, assuming it was a harmless painkiller.
    That scene includes a dream sequence in which Verdone, looking into a mirror, comes face to face with the character of Oscar Pettinari, who Verdone played as a young Roman in his 1986 film "Troppo Forte".
    The film includes other memorable comic scenes, such as when one of his dating companions, played by Francesca Manzini, uses her cell phone in vibrate mode as a sex toy while they're on a date in a restaurant.
    That mishap lands them both in the hospital emergency room, where Guglielmo meets a nurse named Ornella, played by Maria Pia Calzone.
    Verdone graduated from Rome's La Sapienza University with a thesis on literature and Italian silent films.
    He is best known for his decades-long career starring in and directing comedies, but he also played a dramatic role in Paolo Sorrentino's 2013 Oscar-winning film "The Great Beauty".