Benvenuti al Sud (2010 Luca Miniero)

Broader than I was expecting, and lacking the bite of an Ealing comedy, this is nevertheless a warm and funny comedy in which hapless Claudio Bisio not only fails to secure a posting in Milano but (worse than being fired) is transferred to southern Castellabate, actually quite a distance from Napoli (but as we all know, anywhere south of Rome is Arabia). Naturally everyone is lovely and there are lots of jokes (quite well caught through subtitling) about regional dialects, and some funny lines e.g. Alessandro Siani complaining to mama about the amount she fed him because he had a tape worm - "With that amount of food I must have had a tape python".

Scr. Massimo Gaudioso (Gomorrah), and based on Bienvenue Chez les Sh'tis (the same story set in France) by Dany Boon, Alexandre Charlot and Franck Magnier (and the most successful film in France).

The locals Valentina Lodovini, Giacomo Rizzo, Nando Paone et al. all turn out to be lovely, of course. Here's Bisio trying out the 'Milanese no' in declining coffee:

Naike Rivelli, the tasty traffic cop, is also a Playboy centrefold (and her mother was the famous and similarly not shy Italian actress Ornella Muti.  (The immediate traffic jam he faces will meet a laugh from anyone who's driven in the south.)

Finale, where entire town enact the north's version of 'il sud' is hilarious. And remember, when an outsider comes to the South...

A big hit in Italy. A sad sting is in the final dedication, to Angelo Vassallo:

"Towards the end, when the camera tracks along the coast, it takes in the port of Acciaroli, the birthplace of a brave mayor, Angelo Vassallo, who refused to bow to the demands of property developers in league with organised crime. On 5 September, Vassallo was shot dead." (The Guardian 15 October 2010.)