‘Devotion a Story of Love and Desire’ follows Carlo and Margherita, two deeply in love. Something enters their relationship and forces them to doubt everything, including themselves.
When you read a tale about infidelity in a marriage or relationship, you usually see clear weaknesses in the basis of that connection that might have caused one of the couple members to cheat. But what if the pair appears to be in love in both public and private? That is the subject of a new Netflix drama from Italy.
The first shot is a vista of Milan. We see an ancient building’s stairwell and a real estate agent telling a couple that there is no elevator and 99 stairs to the apartment she’s showing them. Still, it’s worth it since they’ll love it.
Devotion A story of Love and Desire is what it says. It’s a six-episode Italian sitcom about the hardships and tribulations of a married couple divided between love and want.
Early on, a problematic occurrence causes the couple to re-evaluate their life choices, resulting in a turbulent series that swings between keeping the couple in question together – and splitting them. As a result, the series has occasional peaks but often falls by the wayside, without flair – or anything to say that hasn’t been done better elsewhere.
Gist of Devotion A story of Love and Desire
Margherita Verna (Lucrezia Guidone) is presenting the apartment to a couple who appear to dislike everything she likes about it, including the large living room, large, sunny windows, and beautiful trim throughout. Another customer, Carlo Pentecoste (Michele Riondino), arrives; Margherita believes she must have double-booked showings. However, when the couple has left, the two have intercourse in the bedroom. Carlo and Margherita are really married to each other?
They’ve been together for five years and still appear to be much in love. They both like the place Margherita is showing clients, but they both know they can’t afford it.
Carlo is a writer and a writing professor at a nearby institution. He’s working with a bright student in his class, Sofia Casadei (Carolina Sala), who he believes hasn’t gone personal enough in her writing to realise her full potential. He promises to meet with her to assist her with her class project of writing about a day that significantly influenced her life.
Meanwhile, Margherita, enamoured with the apartment, finds a gorgeous new physical therapist who informs her that her ongoing discomfort may be caused to tension rather than an old injury.
And for the rest, you must watch it…
Performances
Michele Riondino (Carlo) and Lucrezia Guidone (Margherita) give sincere performances. Still, their characters are structured so that they are never allowed to be entirely vulnerable or gritty.
Carolina Sala (Sofia) and Leonardo Pazzagli (Andrea) play crucial roles in instilling suspicion and desire in Carlo and Margherita. Sofia has her storyline and goals, which the actor depicts well. In contrast, Andrea appears to be there merely as a plot device.
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Devotion A story of Love and Desire – An Honest Review
The most apparent similarity is HBO’s Scenes From A Marriage. Yet, despite an unclear finish, this programme follows a much more linear and fairly predictable route.
The plot revolves around a couple who appear to have it all figured out. Charming Carlo works as a teacher in a school in Milan, and he is well-liked by his peers and his pupils. He also moonlights as a writer, albeit he suffers from writer’s block. Meanwhile, Margherita works as a realtor but falls in love with the condo she’s supposed to sell.
An event involving Carlo and one of his pupils, Sofia, towards the conclusion of episode 1 opens the floodgates for distrust, falsehoods, and desire to take over.
Carlo and Margherita quickly find themselves swimming murky waters, unsure of what they truly want out of life. This will they/won’t they tease throughout six episodes, dividing the time between protagonists and their travels. Margherita befriends her massage therapist, Andrea, while Carlo and Sofia spend more time together. It’s a very apparent setup. The programme has flashes of brilliance that are often crushed by an odd directing decision that detracts from the drama.
In episode 3, for example, Margherita and Carlo had a heated argument at home. This time, the camera pans out and displays a window between them, overlaid with pop music. At the same time, we watch them quarrel with exaggerated hand motions.
One can’t help but think that an approach like Scenes from a Marriage, filled with venomous rage and harsh words to one another, would have seemed far more devastating than what’s here. The show’s speed is also an issue, particularly in some of the middle portions. Episode 4, in particular, is a major offender, and several of the subplots and stories might have been tightened up a little more.
On the other hand, the music mentioned above is a significant impediment. Given that the topic matter deals with marriage, unfaithfulness, desire, and fury, there’s a strange mismatch between this subject matter and some of the tunes used for montages.
However, for every moment that fails, there is another that shines. Carlo and Margherita later compare their condition to “musicians on the Titanic who keep performing while sinking.” It’s such an appropriate and spot-on statement for what this programme shows that the authors deserve credit for incorporating it. And that, in the end, is what Devotion A story of Love and Desire, is all about: This is a presentation of moments telling the story of love and desire. There’s a lot of drawn-out melodrama and lost potential. Still, it’s held together by a few hilarious moments and stand-out scenes.
This isn’t an awful programme, and it’s simple to dip in and out of, but it’s unlikely to remain with you after the credits roll.
The series revolves around these and other topics, such as deceit, betrayal, how dreams come before people, and how individuals take others for granted. Netflix’s miniseries goes into the nitty-gritty of relationships and demonstrates that the world is not black and white but rather has a smattering of grey painted on every corridor of life we pass through.
Overall, the series is for those who wish to explore beyond the stereotype of happily ever after in relationships and instead examine the genuine challenges that couples encounter in their daily lives. Devotion A Story of Love and Desire is now available on Netflix in its entirety.
