Aahana Swrup
Umberto Riccioni Carteni’s Italian romantic comedy film ‘The Love Scam’ follows an unconventional path to love as the protagonist’s swindling intentions set the stage for romance. Misfortune rains down upon Vito and his brother Antone when the latter’s ill-advised business ventures threaten to take away their flat at an apartment complex being eyed for Gentrification. Consequently, Vito’s desperation to hold on to the property as a financially struggling single father compels him to play along with his brother’s menacing plans.
As a result, the two brothers devise a plan to trick a wealthy businesswoman, Marina, into emptying her wallet and becoming their saving grace. Unexpectedly—or perhaps not—Vito ends up falling for his own charade as he starts actually caring for his target. The Netflix movie (originally known as ‘Mica è Colpa Mia’) presents an entertaining narrative with familiar characters whose grounded storylines pave the way for relatability.
The Love Scam Employs Tried and Tested Rom-Com Tropes
‘The Love Scam’ presents a fictional narrative revolving around an unlikely romance and a chaotically inconvenient situation. The story is not based on real-life people or events and remains a work of fiction penned by Caterina Salvadori and Ciro Zecca. Even though the film is an entirely original idea, it finds a sense of familiarity through its easy inclusion in the rom-com genre. Vito and Marina’s unlikely romance follows a number of clichés that lead to a sense of cinematic familiarity.
The central plot revolves around Vito’s efforts to scam Marina in order to save his house from a hostile takeover. Fortunately, his brother, Antone, manages to swipe the woman’s smartphone, which allows the brothers a peek into her life and personality. Consequently, through a significant amount of snooping and stalking, they attempt to force a meet-cute between Marina and a disguised Vito to start the process of gaining the former’s trust. The story takes somewhat of a unique route in showcasing the relationship that brews between its two leads. Still, the instrumental—if dubious—employment of stalking as a plot device that sets up their romance inevitably casts the tale as a stereotype.
Similarly, Marina, Vito, and Aneto all occupy familiar character molds that infuse a level of pre-existing familiarity to them. Marina is a work-driven woman who needs outside influence to discover her true zest for the spontaneous. Likewise, Vito—a relatively kind-hearted lead who regrets his cheating ways—and Aneto, his brother who serves as a comedic relief in the narrative, also retain stereotypical roles in the story. As a result, the equipment of these tropes and clichés grants ‘The Love Scam’ an easy relatability that doesn’t require a true story basis of any kind.
The Love Scam Touches Upon Gentrification in Naples
Even though the lighthearted themes of ‘The Love Scam’ prevent that narrative from going too deep into it, Gentrification in Naples plays a significant role in the storyline. The inciting conflict that pushes Vito and Aneto to seek fraudulent methods to secure their property is deeply rooted in the process of Gentrification. Vito’s family apartment complex has been in the neighborhood for years and has become a home to many. However, an architectural firm is seeking to turn the place into a more profitable venue.
Whether unintentionally or otherwise, this reflects the current socio-economic relationship between Naples and the rise of Gentrification. As per reports, over-tourism and rapid efforts at changing neighborhoods threaten to take over the city. Nonetheless, for now, a general resistance against conformity to the same persists. Therefore, Vito’s central struggle becomes fertile ground for off-screen relatability. Even so, the subtle addition of class commentary takes a backseat to the more prominent priorities of hijinks and romance of the central plot.
Read More: The Love Scam Ending, Explained
