American director Abel Ferrara’s latest film works as a character study, portraying the everyday life of an American director self-exiled in Rome (where Ferrara settled when he left America after 9/11), living with his wife and three-year-old daughter (played by Ferrara’s own wife and daughter), struggling to maintain his sobriety (another aspect in the real life of Ferrara), and in the constant search for enlightenment (the character practices Buddhism, just like Ferrara).

Performed by Willem Dafoe, Tommaso is an obvious alter-ego of the filmmaker, and the role could be framed within the tradition of self-portraits in films like 8½ (Federico Fellini, 1963), All That Jazz (Bob Fosse, 1979), and more recently Pain and Glory (Pedro Almodóvar, 2019), which, like Tommaso, was presented in Cannes last year. However, there are substantial differences between the grand and the bit indulgent Pain and Glory and the mostly modest and self-deprecatory approach by Ferrara.

Tommaso is not exactly an exploration of the relationship of the on-screen director with cinema; it’s more about the mundane aspects of his day-to-day life (Tommaso taking Italian lessons, going to the park with his daughter) and the interpersonal relationships of an anxious man fearing the next crisis. Tommaso speaks vaguely about the movies he has made or intends to (he recalls a time when he almost remade La Dolce Vita, set in Miami), and fragments of storyboards and sketches of his next project, set in Russia, may foretell Ferrara’s upcoming feature titled Siberia.

His relationship with Nikki (Cristina Chiriac) is presented first as a postcard to domesticity before its cracks are progressively exposed. She is younger (29, while Tommaso is in his sixties) and wants to reclaim her freedom, without explaining what she means exactly, when Tommaso acts over-protectively toward her and the child. He just wants a second opportunity not to mess up his life again after the dissolution of his first marriage and detachment from a grown-up son. Self-sabotage, though, is a consequence of his limitless worries, and his fears and obsessions are expressed in moments when he’s unsure if what he sees is real or not.

Dafoe is one of the best actors working right now, whether in Hollywood studio films or independent features, and he has been a favorite for Ferrara over the years. As Tommaso, Dafoe has the opportunity to build a character with many layers of inner tensions and ambivalent reactions. His performance manages to express vulnerability and the internal struggle to dominate Tommaso’s worst impulses. In one AA meeting, Tommaso confesses how painful the separation from his previous family was when he was urged to go to rehab, and he doesn’t want something like that to happen again with his new family. It’s the best scene and a special moment for Dafoe as an actor channeling the filmmaker’s life experience, two longtime collaborators finding a common ground of healing and empathy.

In fact, there are parts in the movie that mirror not only Ferrara’s biography but also Dafoe’s career. Two enigmatic scenes pay direct homage to The Last Temptation of Christ (Martin Scorsese, 1988), where Dafoe interpreted the role of Christ. Here, a street performance puts the actor on the cross again.

Tommaso is the rare cinematic self-portrait that does not romanticize moviemaking but follows instead an extremely personal path that refrains from overt magical realism. In many senses, it’s an exhausting work destined for a one-man audience, the person who created it in the first place. It can be deliberately tedious in some sections, but it also conveys the forbidden allure of reading someone else’s private diary.