Nuovo Olimpo follows two gay men in ’70s Rome who meet each other by chance and fall for each other, but their romance is cut short by an unexpected event. Years later, they meet again. The film is currently streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Enea and Pietro meet at a theater called Nuovo Olimpo and fall for each other. They soon meet again and Enea takes Pietro to his friend Alice’s grandmother’s home, where they make love for the first time.
Their romance blooms but is short-lived as a protest leaves Pietro injured before the hospital. Enea and Peitro were supposed to meet each other but never could. Enea never returns to the theatre to look for Pietro, who does.
They drift apart and go on to live their separate lives, all the while thinking of each other. Decades later, they look for each other again while getting their misunderstandings dispelled, but fail to reconnect.
Decades after that, chance brings them face to face again, and their brief meeting is soon brought to a close with a bittersweet exchange of farewells, as Nuovo Olimpo rolls the credits.
Nuovo Olimpo ending explained in detail:
What happens to Titti?
Titti was a lively cashier at the Nuovo Olimpo theatre which was a safe house for the gays in the ’70s, where they could relieve their passions, albeit in secret.
She was a darling to all and all were loved by her. She also had a lot of suitors and a lot of dreams, especially to act in a film. She even asked Enea to cast her in the future, when he makes his own film.
However, Enea never does that, nor does he ever go back to the theatre to see her after his separation from Pietro. In a sea of suitors, Titti would go on to marry a dysfunctional one and soon, she would end up alone.
In 1993, Enea stumbles upon her at a supermarket and she takes him to her house, where she keeps the letter Pietro handed her to eventually give to Enea.
She says she was never lonely but alone, but she makes her disappointment with Enea clear to him, as her heart still aches over his complete disregard for her for all those years.
How do Pietro and Enea split up?
Pietro and Enea were supposed to meet at Piazza And Pietro had headed off to the place earlier, leaving Enea to finish watching the movie at Nuovo Olimpo.
However, an ongoing protest saw the horde of protesters running from the police and flooding into the theatre. Amidst the ensuing chaos, Titti helped Enea get out to go help Pietro.
Meanwhile, Pietro was also making his way to the theatre, but met an accident on the way, getting run over by a car and getting his hand fractured, among other injuries.
Enea, on the other hand, couldn’t advance through the chaos either and went back inside. After that, they didn’t see each other and Enea thought Pietro left him, believing he just wanted to sleep with a director.
Pietro did return to Nuovo Olimpo, met Titti, and even gave her a letter he wrote for Enea, with his contact number inside as well. However, Enea never turned his back to go look for him, or Titti.
Do Enea and Pietro get back together?
Enea and Pietro keep thinking of each other throughout the years and then decades since their brief romance. Enea even looks at Pietro sitting on the next train with his wife Giulia, but later believes he only thought he saw him.
Pietro is often detached from what’s going on in his surroundings, causing a lot of grief to his wife, who spends so much of her life not being fully satisfied since her husband keeps zoning out.
She picks up on his unquenched desires that surface as zoned out spells that he tries to paint as nostalgia hits him. Pietro finally gets to meet Enea when the latter hurt his eyes horribly because of an on-set accident.
He operates on him and as Enea recovers, with his eyes bandaged, he recognizes Pietro by his voice. Later, he goes to Pietro’s house for a dinner party as Giulia, a big fan of his, insists he visit them.
At the dinner, Giulia easily picks up on all the love that Pietro still has for Enea and although destroyed herself, she later asks her husband to go to Enea who takes a leave.
Meanwhile, Enea lets Pietro know that he now knows why he couldn’t meet him that day of the protest.
Pietro meets him and acknowledges how both of them haven’t let each other go from their memories, and asks Enea to keep him in his memories, before bidding farewell.
He thinks for a second to follow after Enea, but they lead completely different lives with their loved ones, and Pietro can’t be as adventurous as he once was.
Pietro turns back and walks back towards his home, and the two lovers are apart once again, this time with a promise to keep each other in their hearts.
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