2330. Put Grandma In The Freezer (2018)

Starring: Miriam Leone, Fabio De Luigi, Lucia Ocone

Director: Giancarlo Fontana, Giuseppe Stasi

Running Time: 100 mins

Put Grandma In The Frezzer (Metti la nonna in freezer) is an Italian film about a woman living off her grandmother’s pension who, along with her colleagues, hide her grandma’s corpse in a freezer. However, the situation becomes complicated when a finance law enforcement officer falls in loves with her.

Although this is in all truth a fairly light-hearted and easy-going film, Put Grandma In The Freezer doesn’t quite provide the entertainment it aims to due to an annoyingly muddled story, and a lead trio who just aren’t all that likable, particularly when there’s no darker element to the whole affair.

The title is likely reminiscent of Throw Momma From The Train, but this is rather a little bit more Weekend At Bernie’s. After the peaceful death of her grandma, Miriam Leone ends up hiding her in the freezer to keep her pension money coming in, but from then on, all sorts of chaos breaks out, leaving her and her friends likely to be found out.

The problem that I had with this story is that it’s just a little too dark and a little too mean-spirited to provide the throwaway, light-hearted comedy that the film is trying to provide. Weekend At Bernie’s is funny because the leads are completely buffoonish, while Throw Momma From The Train has a seriously dark streak to it, whereas this movie fails to recognise the morally questionable actions of its main characters, and instead pushes ahead expecting you to like them just as you would any normal person, despite the first two scenes featuring them committing crimes.

On the one hand, the performances do go a long way to making the characters as likable as possible. Miriam Leone, Lucia Ocone and Marina Rocco are charismatic and entertaining throughout, but the screenplay doesn’t do them any favours, and for every part of the movie that makes you like them a little bit more, they end up doing something that brings your impression of them as people way back down, something that I found a little disappointing.

As for the film’s comedy, I can’t say that it’s an amazingly hilarious watch. There are good laughs here and there, and its light-hearted atmosphere does make it an easy and simlpe watch, even if its morals still feel a little questionable, but some of the gags really fall flat on their face, above all the main running jokes, like with the tax authorities having an SAS-style division that are just as idiotic as the rest, or simply the constant and repetitive attempts of the lead trio to hide the grandma’s body in the most stupid ways possible.

With that said, if you want a simple, easy-going movie with some fun performances and a few good laughs, then Put Grandma In The Freezer will serve just fine. However, it’s not the world’s most likable movie, and it fails to introduce a necessary darker streak into proceedings to make its story work really well, and that’s why I’m giving it a 6.9 overall.