Irene is keen at finding flaws and reluctant to commit to permanence. In that sense, her job couldn’t be more ideal: secret hotel inspector. She travels to first-class resorts around the world, sampling the food, checking the dust on the mantels, rating the efficiency of the staff. Already deep into a stylish middle age, Irene is aware that her status is unusual and perhaps unsustainable. She knows this not so much because she feels great angst about it—by the looks of things, she doesn’t—but because other people keep implying that her nomadic life must be unfulfilling in some essential way.
Irene, played by Margherita Buy, is the protagonist of A Five Star Life, directed and co-written by Maria Sole Tognazzi. (The Italian title is Viaggio Sole, so something like Solo Traveler would’ve been a better English title.)