Everything Calls for Salvation (also Tutto Chiede Salvezza) dropped on Netflix on October 14, 2022, just days after World Mental Health Day. The Italian series presents its storyline over 7 episodes, each covering a day of the week spent by the protagonist, Daniele (Federico Cesari) in the psychiatric ward. It’s based on Daniele Mencarelli’s book of the same name which looks into the author’s personal experience surrounding the issue.
Led by Cesari, the cast also brings together Vincenzo Crea’s Gianluca, Lorenzo Renzi’s Giorgio, Andrea Pennacchi’s Mario, Fotini Peluso’s Nina, and more, with each of their characters struggling with their own demons, whether they’d like to admit it or not. Digging deep into what society views through a reductive lens as being called ‘crazy’ but actually demands a proper medical diagnosis, the entire narrative rests between the generalized perception of mental health and what it really is.
Netflix’s synopsis describes the series as:
When he wakes up involuntarily committed to a mental hospital, Daniele has to learn again how to live — and love — with the help of his fellow patients.
-Everything Calls for Salvation Review Contains No Spoilers-
The first few episodes pick up the focus of the series rather adeptly and instantly. Daniele is admitted to a psychiatric ward and his foremost response is quite aggressive, one that pushes him into denial about his condition. Nevertheless, the doctors present at the scene build up the seriousness of the matter as it is, while divulging the true turbulent nature of depression and its impact on one’s family. Open talks about mental health issues and thereafter the necessary healing required, without sugarcoating their reality, puts the series a bar above other such attempts, but still an average one at that.
Every day brings us into the nuanced storyline of another character dealing with another severity. The series doesn’t put in enough effort to dissect each character intensely as it does the protagonist, nevertheless, it makes their importance felt. There’s poignant and humane attention paid to both the ones playing the patients in the ward and the doctors working towards their betterment.
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When Daniele moves first into the ward, he has the same sharp, dismissive attitude toward the other patients and his own issues, just like every outsider or visitor. Moreover, these outsiders present a contrasting demeanor to the ones living inside, who prove to be more accepting and sensitive of the other’s ailment despite their own troubles.
The radiant and colorful outside reality is also pitted against a dull hospital outlook, furthering its image as an untouchable far-distant reality that they keep reaching out to. The lighthouse and the sea are symbolic beacons of hope as compared to the controlled circumstances they reside in at present.
Daniele’s life isn’t particularly a far cry from that of youngsters entering their early twenties. With no passions driving him, the absurdity of a modern redundancy takes over and leaves him even more overwhelmed and suffocated. In a situation like this, the imposed ‘imprisonment’, as it seems to him, is his only path to resurrecting and healing himself.
And in doing so, no grand artifice is introduced to pull the story to the final line. It’s all reliant on the few characters and their shared dynamic of interactions that propels it ahead despite the enclosed setting of the series.
Everything Calls for Salvation: Final Thoughts
In the end, the drama series is just as much searching itself as Daniele is. While the show makes an attempt to tear down stereotypes surrounding mental health, it doesn’t always transcend to perfection, but it’s alright. Each encounter is all about how they speak their heart out to each other, which is why it demands tranquil patience on the viewers’ end to listen to them as well.
An effort is made to employ a romantic subplot yet again, and even though all we really need is a little love to heal us all, romantic love isn’t always the absolute remedy we’re looking for, especially if we haven’t learned to be honest with ourselves first. The series falls into this tap like many other counterparts following the same theme, but also pulls itself out before the end, though barely.
The most profound instances of all are those that transpire between Daniele and his fellow ward mates and it is because they’re all fighting off the same storm together. Even though the rest of the world reduces them and sees them as a reflection of their problems, in each other, they finally find a consoling and accepting solace unlike any other they’ve come across before, and that’s what we all want after all, isn’t it?
Everything Calls for Salvation is now streaming on Netflix. Let us know your thoughts on the series in the comments section below.
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