Blame Sofia Coppola. Or at least blame Los Angeles. For immediately after the former’s summery, sun-bleached “Somewhere” kicked off this morning’s activity, the Lido clearly decided to rebel against Coppola’s aesthetic and started gathering its clouds. Shortly before noon, the beachfront was a mere blur under a torrential downpour of rain, robust sponsors’ umbrellas blown heedlessly across the red carpet.
The storm ended as abruptly as it began, though I couldn’t help wondering if it was an instruction of sorts from the festival gods. “Okay, dilettantes, you’ve had the three name American auteurs,” they seemed to be saying. “Now feel free to hop on over to Telluride or Toronto; you won’t even be missing out on the weather.”
I was indoors when the gusts began whipping against the windows of the press room, but was affected by the storm nonetheless: largely because a leak in the ceiling necessitated the shutdown of the room’s wi-fi network for over two hours, handily erasing half the “Somewhere” review I’d already written and throwing my day’s screening schedule out of whack. Venice’s slightly bumpy administration can be endearing sometimes; this was not one of those times.