Idda (2026) Movie Drinking Game
Take a Drink: for volcanoes and/or lava
Take a Drink: for philosophical conversations
Take a Drink: for music
Take a Drink: for talk of “the blow”
Do a Shot: they said the title!
By: Henry J. Fromage (Two Beers) –
“Idda” is another name locals have for Mount Etna, meaning “she” in local dialect, reflecting the belief that the volcano is living, and is female in nature.
Idda follows Ita (Tecla Insolia), a photographer who wishes to finally climb Mount Etna with her friend Sofia (Romana Maggiora Vergano) as she had promised they’d do after Ita’s mother’s death.
A Toast
From the jump, it’s clear that director Irene Dionisio has an excellent eye for composition and capturing detail, and an intriguing editing style to string all this striking imagery together. This melds well with the two fetching young women at the center of this story and the small Italian town traditions and then bucolic climb they’ll navigate together.
However, there’s a melancholic streak in how Ita talks of her mother, of disappearing, and in the look on Sofia’s face when conversation strays this direction, a palpable worry. This feeling will simmer beneath the surface of all of their interactions throughout the film. They’re clearly fast friends, or were at one point- they may fight, but it’s over in a flash like a spring shower. At least it is, until by their frequency you start to wonder if they are going to build into a more destructive storm – these girls have some issues they need to work through, more even than there appear to be on the surface.
Dionisio, Insolia, and Maggiora Vergano meld performance and editing to keep the audience on unstable footing as to just what transpired and will transpire between these two up until the perhaps divinable yet still hard-hitting ending lands and we see the full architecture of this story.
Beer Two
Sofi is a tad cheesy and more than a little headstrong – the train dancing is indeed obnoxious, and as the fights escalate her reactions become more and more outsized. What this all means once you realize where the film is really heading becomes all the more head-scratching.
Verdict
Idda is a portrait of a strained friendship colored by both nostalgia and deep regrets, set against the majesty of Mount Etna.
