The Place

The Place (2017) is an Italian drama directed by Paolo Genovese — watch online on iFILM. The setup is spare: a man sits at the same table in the same café and sees visitors one by one. Valerio Mastandrea plays him without explanation or backstory. He can grant any wish. Every wish comes with a task. The harder the desire, the more the task will cost.

Nine strangers pass through — a cop, a nun, a blind man, others — each weighing how far they'll go. Genovese shoots almost the entire film in a single location, and the compression does its work: the claustrophobic space turns each negotiation into something close to theatre. The film follows on from his earlier Perfect Strangers and shares its interest in what people hide and what they'll trade. Stream The Place (2017) on iFILM.