Weird and wonderful: Mine Vaganti

Loose mines

I must admit that I was quite biased against Riccardo Scamarcio, the protagonist of My Vaganti. Until I interviewed him. To be honest: his roles so far are mainly due to his looks. Not the standard role of a womanizer or a toy boy, but enough to attract hordes of screaming teenage girls to Italian cinemas (search his name on YouTube and you will find, in addition to the intense scenes with La Bellucci, a large number of videos of this type of girls expressing their love for the actor)

“I prefer to choose roles that are not ordinary, that are special,” Scamarcio says. In Mine Vaganti, he takes a bold step in this regard. His character, Tommaso, is gay. The question is whether this will appeal to his large number of female fans, but the fact is that he plays the role very believably. Tommaso decides to return to his parents in southern Italy to finally admit that he is attracted to men. But his brother beats him to the punch with his own confession. When their father suffers a heart attack, it seems that he has completely lost his chance. As a result, Tommaso keeps postponing this moment.

Besides being a lighthearted look at Italian society, My Vaganti is also very funny. But there are also some serious moments and room for tears from time to time. “With this film I hope to make people think about the problem of homosexuality in Italy.” Serious man, that Scamarcio. I was impressed. Not because of his looks (which I think are pretty good), but because of the depth he had in his conversation. Besides his acting, he seems to be a big fan of philosophical literature. He tells a whole story about the meaning of life and love. But when I ask him if he has been to Holland, he can’t hide his rebellious streak for long: “Once, in Amsterdam. I was in a coffee shop at the time, I don’t quite remember…”

Yet, in My Vaganti he is quite modest. Often lost in thought, a little timid. A man of few words. His female fans may not miss this, but the question is whether the public will embrace him en masse because of this film. I fear he will have to go even further out of the ordinary to prove his true worth.