7 chili in 7 giorni (lit. '7 kilos in 7 days') is a 1986 Italian comedy film directed by Luca Verdone.
Contents
Plot
Silvano and Alfio are mediocre students who manage to snatch away a degree at the university where they both studied medicine with abysmal results. After a few years Silvano (now a peddler of beauty products who on the side sells pornographic material and sex toys) meets Alfio again, now running a beauty parlor fueled with the money of his neurotic wife. After a comic mishap with a customer left too long in a sauna machine who has apparently suffered a stroke Silvano, seeing the large country villa where Alfio lives with his family, proposes him to turn it into a dieting-farm where rich customers will pay hefty sums to get rid of excess fat. The operation is run haphazardly with several incidents; in the end Alfio suffers a nervous breakdown and goes catatonic. An English professor of Aesthetics (with which Alfio shares the room in the clinic he's recuperating at) convinces the duo that true beauty lies in generous proportions, as in the works of Tiziano, Giorgione and other famous artists. Alfio and Silvano then convert the villa in a trattoria where the best patrons are the same people who originally visited it for dieting purposes.
Cast
Renato Pozzetto: Silvano Baracchi
Carlo Verdone: Alfio Tamburini
Silvia Annichiarico: Samantha Tamburini
Tiziana Pini: the beautiful lady
Franco Diogene: Assessore Turri
Elena Fabrizi: Sora Rosa
Annabella Schiavone: opera singer
Fides Stagni: Samantha's grandmother
Bruno Bilotta: younger brother of Samantha
Aldo Massasso: older brother of Samantha
Haruhiko Yamanouchi: the Chinese domestic
Fiammetta Baralla: Tina, patient of the clinic
Release and reception
7 chili in 7 giorni was released on December 18, 1986 in Rome and Turin.
The film had 2.4 million admissions in Italy during 1987, the tenth most popular film of the year.