THE LAST ONE FOR THE ROAD
Francesco Sossai keeps the Jarmuschian spirit alive in his hugely enjoyable Veneto roadtrip
Directed by: Francesco Sossai
Starring: Filippo Scotti, Sergio Romano, Pierpaolo Capovilla
Released: 10 July 2026
9/10
Jarmuschketeers who were underwhelmed by Father Mother Sister Brother a few months back take heart: the spirit of barfly absurdism is aflame and being tended with great care in the nightclubs and backroad baretti of Veneto by Italian director Francesco Sossai.
Last One for the Road is the director’s second film - he made his debut with the deader-than-deadpan Other Cannibals, fresh out of film school in 2021. It follows Carlobianchi and Doriano, two happily sozzled midlife wrecks - their faces like sea walls battered by the tide of 50,000 beers - carousing towards Treviso, where they hope to meet their old associate, Genio, back in the old country from Argentinian exile to recover the loot from a stolen sunglasses scam he ran in the fabled 1990s. But the rendezvous feels like an incidental episode in a grander quest, for the pair are on a long journey to the end of the night in search of “l’ultima” - the fabled, perfect last drink.
On their chaotic travels, guided by divine providence, they encounter Giulio, a shy bespectacled architecture student who is failing to win the heart of a beautiful fellow student. Though he has to give his final college presentation the next morning, Carlo and Dori insist on taking the young secchione under their wings, intent on teaching him something about savouring life in the moment.
Naturally things don’t go to plan: flights and presentations are missed, a fabled trattoria serving garlic snail polenta is now boarded up, and treasure proves eternally elusive. But on their hazy, mazy picaresque travels they see with fresh, if hungover, eyes an Italy that is fast fading away - supposedly to become flyover territory for a rumoured Budapest-Venice-Lisbon superhighway.
This might have easily soured into a bleary, sentimental ballad of holy drinkers - and, to be fair, it doesn’t entirely avoid that risk. But for the most part Sossai keeps things finely tuned - helped by three pitch-perfect performances from Filippo Scotti, Sergio Romano and Pierpaolo Capovilla. If you follow il musica rock you might know Capovilla as frontman of noise trio One Dimensional Man, and something like the Italian Nick Cave. In a film that’s full of great music - much of it composed by Venetian country soul crooner Krano - he in particular captures the spirit of this perfectly bittersweet movie, drunk dancing to secret melody only he can hear.
