Stelle solitarie

What does it mean to take care of someone? Can we ever really do it? And above all, what do we look for in ourselves when we are close to those who suffer? Houston is the city that has always solved problems, and it does so with grandiose impulses and boundless ambitions. And what could be more ambitious than curing a disease that seems incurable? That’s why Cristina is there to support her friend Vera, beautiful and full of light, who has suffered a cruel blow in life that she refuses to accept. And maybe Cristina is also looking for a cure in some way. A story full of intelligence, that relies on lightness to try to say what we are, and what we can be, in the face of other people’s pain. Some people have a confidential relationship with suffering, and Cristina has always considered herself one of these. Empathetic, sentimental, but also very good at bending over backwards to show that reality can be cheerful, despite everything. She went through Luca’s illness – her husband, the father of her daughter, a symbiotic love that made everything else fade into the background – like this, with a reassuring and spirited expression on her face that she can’t seem to shake off even now that Luca is well. On the other hand, Vera, ‘the sugar friend’, is still not well. After years of tiring compromises with the disease, she wants to go to the place where the cure is approached with the same daring spirit as the space race, inspired by the same megalomania: Houston, the city that solves problems. And who better than Cristina to be by her side? Thus begins the journey of these two forty-year-old friends, who have built their bond on the ability to tell each other about their lives and make it more fun than it is, without ever having to choose between depth and frivolity. Beauty is their reality principle: if for others it serves as an escape, for them it reminds them exactly what counts, because in beauty there is also a celebration of life, curiosity, imagination and play. But now Vera, like Luca, seems to have changed light: she is solitary, absorbed, shining a little apart from her original constellation. Forced to give up her naive fantasies of caring for others, often alone in a city of deserted streets lined with sparkling skyscrapers and little houses with a basketball hoop on the garage door, Cristina then sets herself the task that she does best: to turn this journey into a story, possibly an adventure.