Adults in the Room

Roman Polanski isn’t the only over-80 director premiering at this year’s festival. Costa-Gavras – who, similarly to the Polish filmmaker, lives and works in France – adapts Yanis Varoufakis’s book of the same name to retell the events following the 2015 victory of Aléxis Tsípras’s party Syriza in Greece.

This was one of the most politically controversial happenings of today’s Europe, which saw the contraposition between the Eurogroup – depicted as a number of arrogant and incompetent bunch of politicians – and the minister of finance Varoufakis, who attempted to negotiate a workable recovery plan for Greece.

The events culminated with the referendum on the third bailout when the Greek population voted against the proposed austerity conditions with a 61% majority. Despite this, the government ended up making a U-turn and signing the deal at arguably even worse conditions.

While this is obviously a biased retelling of those crucial months, it’s clear that something went really wrong during the EU meetings, when Greece was bullied to accept a deal that was way too harsh for their economy, causing a deep social crisis.

The film has the value of a documentary but goes beyond the collation of facts. Costa-Gavras is a master in sweetening the drama and palpable tension with funny moments worthy of a fine black comedy. This was also possible thanks to Alexandre Desplat’s soundtrack which follows every mood swing hand in glove.

Like in a Greek tragedy, Christos Loulis (Varoufakis) and Alexandros Bourdoumis (Tsípra) take to the (cinematic) stage as the two infamous politicians who did everything they could to challenge the European troika but failed to deliver on their promises.

Filippo L’Astorina, the Editor

Adults in the Room does not have a release date yet.

Watche the trailer for Adults in the Room here: