This Time It’s for Real

Lucilla dreams of leaving the city to open a chalet in a tiny village in the Italian Alps with her boyfriend.  So what is she to do when he never shows? She dives in solo anyway, finding wine, weirdos, and a new kind of love in the most unexpected place.

When Lucilla dreams of opening a tavern in a tiny Italian mountain village, she imagines a romantic new beginning with her boyfriend Enrico at her side. Apparently, Enrico has other dreams though and he is too cowardly to tell her.    Alone in a crumbling inn at twelve hundred meters, with no phone signal and only a bottle of disinfectant for comfort, Lucilla faces the terrifying possibility that her dream life might be over before it even begins.

But the mountains have other plans. At dawn, Lucilla is jolted awake by a raucous procession: the locals, dressed in traditional costumes, arrive with drums, bagpipes, baskets of bread, and a chorus of warm, mischievous smiles. What begins as a surreal welcome turns into a lifeline. Despite her heartbreak, Lucilla finds herself swept into the rhythms of the village, with its cast of eccentric characters—an innkeeper who quotes Dante, a baker obsessed with perfect focaccia, an old widow who insists Lucilla must marry her nephew, and a handyman who miraculously appears every time she nearly electrocutes herself.

Running the tavern is chaos: pipes burst, tourists complain, storms roll in at the worst possible moment. Yet Lucilla, who has always leaned on others, slowly discovers she can handle it herself. And in the process, she realizes that life—like love—doesn’t always go according to plan.

The more time she spends in the village, the more Lucilla’s defenses drop. Friendship turns into belonging, and belonging into community. And then there’s Luca, the charming but infuriating man with the jangling set of keys who first greeted her. He’s stubborn, sarcastic, and never where he says he’ll be—yet somehow always exactly where she needs him. Against her better judgment, Lucilla begins to wonder if the mountains didn’t just give her a tavern, but a second chance at love.

This Time it’s for Real is a witty, heartwarming romantic comedy about starting over when life doesn’t go to plan, discovering strength in solitude, and finding family in the most unexpected places. With its breathtaking Alpine setting, lovable oddball characters, and a heroine whose vulnerability makes her both relatable and hilarious, this is a story of how being left behind can sometimes be the very thing that sets us free.

At once tender and laugh-out loud funny, it’s a film that reminds us that the right time isn’t something we wait for—it’s something we create.