The Guardian has published a review of The Last One for the Road, a new tragicomedy by director Francesco Sossai. The film is presented as a road movie and buddy comedy following two amiable, perpetually drunk middle-aged men on a wandering journey towards Venice, and the review matters as a critical appraisal of a low-key Italian feature that blends bleak melancholy with humour.

Doriano (Pierpaolo Capovilla) and Carlobianchi (Sergio Romano) live hand-to-mouth on the fringes of petty crime, funded by an old scam involving stolen designer eyewear set up by their friend Genio (Andrea Pennacchi), whom they hope to reunite with but narrowly miss. Along the way they befriend Giulio (Filippo Scotti), a lovelorn architecture student who reluctantly tags along and takes them to Carlo Scarpa's Brion tomb, a concrete monument that meditates on death. The review offers an unsentimental view of Venice and its surrounds, and reads the film as a likeable, meandering meditation on ageing, friendship and unfulfilled longing.