Review by John P. Harvey
In Say It Loud, the heroine, here named Giulia (Valentina Lodovini), has been putting up with everything and everyone, including everyday abuses by her live-in boyfriend, Terapeuta (Neri Marcorè), her boss, Ottavio (Libero De Rienzo), her pet-obsessed sister, Valentina (Flora Canto), and others who abuse her good graces more casually.
Giulia absorbs life’s slings and arrows, bottling up her resentment until one day she can take no more and, on the verge of breaking down, finds herself in the office of a smooth-talking healer, who hands her a potion to be used in small doses as needed in order to assert herself.
When Giulia unthinkingly knocks back a large dose of the potion, she loses all control of her inhibition on asserting herself, and begins serving up the reality checks that those around her clearly need. But it’s one thing to speak your mind; acting it can reap unwanted results by the bushel.
In running over a laundry list of the modern-day first-world injustices arising largely from selfishness and self-centredness and at the fun one might fantasise about having in righting them, Say It Loud offers no deep insights, no solutions, and little that one might apply in real life. The well-cast seasoned actors under a director with a good eye, following a strong script, make even such fantasy righting of the wrongs of the world an enjoyable foray into becoming the heroes of our own lives. Righting the injustices in our own lives vicariously through Giulia, Say It Loud is a joyride in pure escapism.
