Nuovo Olimpo has a classic love-at-first-sight plot for our aspiring director Enea (Daminano Gavino) and medical student Pietro (Andrea Di Luigi). The two young 25-year-olds meet, and fall madly in love, but are separated, so spend the next thirty years trying to find one another. When we get past their romance, their time spent yearning and mourning for one another is slow and slightly boring, and the two leads are outshone by the many supporting characters around them. With a bland and underwhelming ending, this film lacks substance and fulfillment.
The film follows the story of a love-loss and the ideas of what might have been. With a nod to cinema lovers, there are strong themes surrounding filming and what the cinema represents for all of us.
Nuovo Olimpo Ending Explained
The film is almost in three parts: Part One, Enea and Pietro together; Part Two, their lives apart; and Part Three, they meet again. Predictable but still entertaining nonetheless.
Towards the end, the two meet on a terrace where they once shared a romantic evening in a very emotional yet bland reunion. They agree to meet for dinner, bringing each other’s partners, yet Enea comes to the dinner party alone.
It’s an awkward dinner as the two stare longingly at one another, and Pietro’s wife becomes suspicious. Enea confirms what was missing from his movie, some information that Julia knows about her husband Pietra, and she pieces things together.
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In a shocking, and slightly underwhelming twist, Julia tells Pietro to go to Enea, with just a simple shake to her head.
The two run through the streets of Rome, this time not being torn apart but being able to have a real, proper goodbye. Enea walks off into the distance and Pietro turns around with the hope he will come back, but he does not.
The film’s final scene is of the two, back in their 20s, eating at the restaurant where they should have been before the protest.
Where did Pietro and Enea meet?
The two share some seductive glances in the darkened theatre of the Nuovo Olimpo, and after a brief introduction, the two slither into the bathroom stalls. But their lovemaking doesn’t happen until much later. The two build a beautiful whirlwind romance before being torn apart by a protest.
The reasons why they never spoke since are vague and unclear, and the protest doesn’t feel like a strong enough reason to keep the two apart for all these years, especially if they were so in love.
Do Pietro and Enea end up together?
As the film develops, we see the two lovers build lives without one another, both successful in their own way, one even married. They reminisce about one another and what could have been and this impacts their lives to an extent — but not enough to find one another.
In a sad, shocking twist, the two do not end up together. The ending leads with the idea that they will get together, as Pietro’s wife tells him to go to his lover, but when they meet, too much time has passed and they are two different people. They simply say goodbye and walk off in opposite directions.
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