YOU AND ME MAKE THREE // A FILM REVIEW OF "SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT"
Shot in lush black and white and with the soul of French New Wave cinema, Svetlana Cvetko's SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT offers a wistful look at modern day romance between three friends and their search to find passion and meaning in their lives. Narrated by an unseen woman (Anne-Laure Jardry), whose identity we are not told until the very end, we follow three soon to be friends living in LA and see them meet, immediately bond and fall for each other.
Marcello (Mattia Minasi) is the son of a very famous Italian soap opera star. He's in LA to attend meetings for his father. Bored with the meetings and anxious to find his own place in the world that doesn't involve his father, he starts to blow them off, eventually meeting Nassim (Neyssan Falahi) and Christine (Christina Rambaldi). Nassim is a struggling actor who is also trying to find his place in the world and meets Marcello on the beach. Christine makes the two friends a trio when they meet her at the coffee shop where she works. She's an artist who is also in transition and the three of them hit it off immediately. They begin to spend all of their time together, rarely leaving each other's sight, and slowly fall in love. The polyamorous relationship builds beautifully and naturally, and the trio of actors have excellent chemistry. Because Marcello's family is rich, he's able to wine and dine the three of them and they all move in together, blissfully living in the moment.
Shot in a carefree, almost documentary style that often feels adlibbed (and with gorgeous cinematography by the director Svetlana Cvetko herself), SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT is a breezy, romantic and lush film that can warm away the coldest of hearts. It has charm to spare and focuses on a refreshingly stable relationship. The romance feels real, the connections are all there and the passion and sexuality actually spark. They are three souls that improve each other, complete each other throughout this moment in their lives. Not everything in the film fully works though, especially the dramatic shift late in the film as well as the rushed ending fall apart a bit, but the experience of the film itself will stay with you. The longing and tenderness of their days is a joy to experience and Cvetko (making her directorial debut here) shows great promise as a storyteller to watch.
GRADE: A-
WRITTEN BY Svetlana Cvetko, David Scott Smith DIRECTED BY Svetlana Cvetko STARRING Christina Rambaldi, Mattia Minasi, Neyssan Falahi, Anne-Laure Jardry. NOW PLAYING IN DIGITAL CINEMAS EVERYWHERE. FOR MORE INFO: https://www.showmewhatyougot.film/