Smart working (Italian anglicism meaning "working from home") is a 2026 Italian comedy directed by Svevo Moltrasio.
A business located in Milan wants to remove the possibility to work from home because almost all their employees', mostly living in Turin, productivity has declined. The only exception is Giuliano (Maccio Capatonda), who's exploiting the possibility to the fullest, enjoying the fact he can pass his time with his family. This all changes after he proposes his colleague Stefano (Svevo Moltrasio) to meet a girl, Francesca, who is also the former babysitter of Giuliano's son. Stefano is uncomfortable, so Giuliano tells him to work together the same day so he can have an excuse to be at Giuliano's home when the girl arrives. Stefano, however, has problems with his work computer, so he calls the now retired computer technician, Gianni (Maurizio Nichetti), and tells him to come to Giuliano's home the next day. From there, things only get worse for Giuliano.
Tropes found in Smart working:
- Blatant Lies: Gianni and Stefano returns to Giuliano's home stained with blood. Giuliano asks them what happened, and Gianni replies with "I've fallen" in response. Stefano then adds, to justify his own stains, that Gianni grasped him to help himself getting up.
- Comically Missing the Point: Stefano, Gianni and Giuliano are discussing how to get rid of Laura's stalker. Stefano proposes to break the stalker's knees, and Giuliano is disgusted by the idea. Gianni also reprimands him... Because he got the plural of kneenote wrong.
- Downer Ending: Due to his colleagues abusing his hospitality and pushing useless expenses on him, Giuliano ends up being evicted from his current home and unable to get a loan from his bank, and so he's forced to move back to his previous, smaller house he wanted to sell. Also, his colleagues, who don't want ot return working in Milan, have "gifted" to Giuliano the loan of a place, with Giuliano, however, who has to pay in advance, and decide to work all there with Giuliano, having noticed an increment in their productivity. Said place, however, is in a completely different zone from Giuliano's home, and so he's unable to work from home anymore.
- Extreme Doormat: Giuliano and Laura are too permissive towards the former's colleague, who abuse their hospitality and force their expenses on Giuliano. This proves to be very detrimental for the two of them.
- Foreign Language Title: This italian film has the english title Smart working, even if this is actually an italian anglicism and the expression isn't used in English.
- Ghostwriter: Laura is proposed to take the credit for a book written by someone who prefers to remain anonymous and willingly left the rights of his book to the publishing house. She initially accepts the offer, but after she gains a stalker, actually the real author, she changes idea.
- Irony: Giuliano accepts having his colleagues working in his house in order to keep working from home, but, due to him being too permissive, he ends up moving back to his old house, having to travel with his car to reach a place he loaned to work together with his colleagues. To make it short, to avoid returning to work in his office, Giuliano ends up working in an office.
- Karma Houdini: Gianni and Stefano don't have any repercussion for their assault of the presumed stalker, who's then revealed to be the real author of the book Laura has to become the fake author of.
- Lazy Alias: Played for laughs. Federico has sex with Francesca, but her criminal on-and-off toxic boyfriend shows up and beats him up. After asking him his name, Federico tells the "boyfriend" that his name is Stefano, like Giuliano's colleague he met at Giuliano's home. It's a complete useless move, as the "boyfriend" has already seen him and can't confuse the two of them.
- Literal-Minded: Stefano has a tendency to take what he's told him literally. Giuliano tells him to come his home one day for him to meet Francesca, even the next one, this part added in a figurative sense meaning "soon". Stefano ends up coming to Giuliano's home the very next day, without giving Giuliano any advice.
- Non-Indicative Name: One of Giuliano's colleague's dogs are named Caino ("Cain") and Giuda ("Judas"). They are, however, friendly and obedient dogs.
- Police Are Useless: Discussed. Giuliano's solution to get rid of Laura's stalker is to call the police, but both Stefano and Gianni are against the idea because, for them, the police is not going to do anything to protect Laura and such action would only anger the stalker, risking to excalate his behaviour in response.
- The Quiet One: Giuliano's son doesn't speak much. He's only seen speaking whenever his family is seeing what house to buy, always to tell his parents that he prefer their old home.
- Running Gag: Gianni telling one of Giuliano's colleagues that Giuliano's home is not a bar after said colleague asks something that would be inconvenient for Giuliano. The third time it's actually Gianni just telling such thing to said colleague preemptively.
- Stalker Without a Crush: The true author of the book starts stalking Laura after she accepts to become the author of his book, as he wants to remain anonymous. This ends up creeping her out, which leads to Stefano and Gianni assaulting him.
- The Tease: Discussed. Ilaria reveals Giuliano she's teasing Stefano for both her and Federico's amusement and to help him gaining points with Francesca. At the end of the movie, Ilaria ends up getting pregnant, and Giuliano thinks that she's slept with Stefano. Asking him, the latter replies to Giuliano that he doesn't care about having made Ilaria pregnant, confirming his suspicions.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: Zig-Zagged. While they don't live there, all of Giuliano's colleagues end up working in Giuliano's home for all day, every single day, even bringing their children and their animals.
- Toilet Humour: When the real estate agent is showing the house Giuliano is currently living at to his clients, he tries to show him the bathroom, finding it occupied. Shortly after Stefano emerges from the bathroom, telling the real estate agent that the bathroom would not be able to function for the next half hour due to the smell coming from it.
- Too Dumb to Live: Downplayed. The true author of the book, rather than introducing himself to Laura or having someone else introduce him to her, decide to start stalking Laura and engaging in creepy behaviours like putting a pack of chickpeas next to her home. He ends up being sent into a coma and then suffering from amnesia due to Gianni and Stefano assaulting because the two were worried about Laura.
- Vicariously Ambitious: Implied. Laura's mother always pushes the button of her lacking career as a writer whenever she talks to her daughter, as if for her the possibility of her daughter becoming a famous writer is more important than to Laura herself.