The Right to Happiness

A gentle, bookish drama that feels like a warm conversation about reading, freedom, and friendship, with a quiet emotional pull.

Directed by

Claudio Rossi Massimi

Genres

Drama

Starring

Remo Girone, Corrado Fortuna, Didie Lorenz Tchumbu

Overview

The Right to Happiness centers on a small used book store in a small plaza in a small town with big vistas, somewhere in Italy. It sounds like a book lover's fantasy, and maybe it is. The bookseller, Libero, knows most of his rather eccentric customers and can barely bring himself to take their money (although fascists pay double). When a young boy, Essien (Didie Lorenz Tchumbu), an émigré from Burkina Faso, happens on the shop, Libero begins lending him books of increasing difficulty. From Pinocchio to Moby Dick, Essien can read as fast as Libero can lend, and the two form a bond over reading and meaning. "Books should be read twice," Libero says. "Once to understand them, and once to think." Life should probably be lived like that too, but the bookseller's name means "free," and freedom is what Libero bequeaths to Essien.

How it feels

Warm, earnest, melancholic and whimsical. Measured and needs your attention.

About

Friendship, education, freedom, immigration

Content

Mild language. No violence, gore or sexual content.

Note

Written by AI, so it can be wrong. Full breakdown

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