Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Fading Gigolo’ On Prime Video, Where A Sensitive Watchmaker Takes Over His Father’s Sex Work Business

Sex work has often been the topic of comedies, whether they were movies or TV series. Varied clients with varied needs seems to be ripe comedic fodder. But it’s how the work affects the people who do it, along with the relationships they have, that’s the best part about those stories. A new Italian comedy on Prime Video is about a man who just discovered that his father was a sex worker, and that he may be in the position to take over his dad’s business.

FADING GIGOLO: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: As he listens to a podcast about men and women teaming up to fight the patriarchy, a man makes his wife breakfast, including putting a cocoa heart on top of her cappuccino. She rushes in, grabs the cup and pours it all in a thermos.

The Gist: Alfonso (Pietro Sermonti) is a watchmaker, and a sensitive soul who considers himself an ally of the feminist movement. He thinks it’s strange that his wife Margherita (Ambra Angiolini) is nervous about what they’re both wearing before their session with Costanza (Asia Argento), their couples counselor, but he doesn’t pay it much mind. He is surprised, though, when Costanza tells them that they’re fine as a couple and are done with counseling.

At the watch shop where he works, he gets a call that his estranged father, Giacomo (Christian De Sica) has died. He runs to the hospital, and finds his dad, who had a heart attack but is very much alive, is charming a phalanx of doctors, nurses and other patients. Giacomo tells his irritated son that saying he died was the only way he could get Alfonso to come.

He doesn’t only need Alfonso to get him home and up to his flat (but he’s too claustrophobic to take the elevator), but he needs his son to get an envelope of cash from a female client of his. When Alfonso questions the whole scenario, Giacomo tells him the truth: He is not an antiques dealer who likes to have a lot of sex, like Alfonso thought his entire life. He’s actually a gigolo, and has been ever since Alfonso’s mother died when he was a kid. When he gets phone calls from his clients, most of whom are sexy septuagenarians, he sweetly tells them he’s on sick leave.

Alfonso goes to pick up the money, from a sixtysomething actress named Adele (Gloria Guida) whose movies he used to watch as a kid. She immediately pounces on him, thinking that Alfonso is taking over for his father while he convalesces. After he bolts out of the woman’s house, he’s followed by two muggers, who steals the three watches Alfonso forgot he was wearing when he bolted work to go to the hospital.

Giacomo tells Alfonso that he should take over the business, with Giacomo taking a 30% cut oif whatever Alfonso earns. But Alfonso, who just thought his marriage was “fixed,” refuses. That’s when he finds out from his boss that the stolen watches weren’t ensured and were worth over €100,000. He has a few days to come up with the money, but the thugs the boss brings out indicate to Alfonso that if he can’t pay with cash, he’ll pay with some broken bones.

Then he comes home early, and sees Margherita having sex with Costanza. He might be more chuffed that she’s cheating on him with their couple’s counselor than the fact that she’s cheating on him. That leads him to go back to his father and agree to meet with clients in order to keep the business afloat.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? American Gigolo crossed with Hung. The series is also based on the French series Alphonse. There is a 2013 film called Fading Gigolo, which was written and directed by its star, John Turturro, but we’re not sure if that influenced this series at all.

Our Take: Fading Gigolo (Original Title: Gigolò per caso), created and written by Daniela Delle Foglie and Tommaso Renzoni, mostly deals in the silly, choosing physical gags and recurring wordplay gags over character and plot most of the time. Those moments aren’t always successful, because they can be over the top. It’s only when the show examines Alfonso and his relationships with the people in his life does the show actually become interesting.

A sight gag where Alfonso’s boss twists his arm in front of a client is an example of an over-the-top physical moment that doesn’t land. Is it supposed to show just how violent his seemingly-meek boss can be? Not sure. There is also another gag where, during his counseling session with Costanza, the therapist lingers on a first syllable, prompting Alfonso to finish her thought, but he finishes with a different word than she was thinking of. It’s mildly funny the first time, not so much when it’s done for the third time in 90 seconds.

What we wanted to find out more about is just what caused the rift between Alfonso and Giacomo. Was it just the fact that his father was always out having sex with various women, with seemingly no explanation why, after Alfonso’s mother died? Or was there more to it than that? We’ll likely see more of that as the season goes along, but a but more background in the first episode would have been welcomed.

The meat of this series (so to speak) is going to be seeing Alfonso transform into a modern kind of gigolo, one that might be more sensitive and sincere than his father was to the women who used to pay Giacomo for his sexual prowess. As we saw with the actress that Alfonso barely escaped from, his father’s clients aren’t exactly shrinking violets, and that assertiveness may play into the fact that Alfonso thinks of himself as a feminism ally.

But it’ll also be the yang to the yin of Alfonso’s gentle nature, and we’re curious to see how much of that will change, especially in the face of the revelation that his wife and his marriage counselor were bumping uglies, perhaps even while they were in her care.

Sex and Skin: Any sex we see is under covers. We see some bare butts in a locker room as Alfonso talks to his friend Luigi (Frank Matano), who just happens to be a priest.

Parting Shot: In the same bed as Giacomo, Alfonso wonders aloud if he has siblings that his father has never told him about. Giacomo tells him to piss off, and Alfonso pulls the covers over his head.

Sleeper Star: We’ve got our eye on Asia Argento as Costanza, simply because we’re not sure we’ve ever seen her actually act before. In this part of the world, she’s mostly known as the romantic partner of Anthony Bourdain shortly before his death.

Most Pilot-y Line: While sleeping in his dad’s bed, Alfonso dreams of Margherita and Costanza standing and staring at him as if they were the twins from The Shining, an overplayed gag that makes little sense here.

Our Call: STREAM IT. What we hope is that as Fading Gigolo goes along, the wacky gags and physical bits will fade and the funny moments will come from Alfonso’s newfound career as well as his relationship with his father, which were the best parts of the first episode.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.