Toni and Paola are a happily married couple, or so it seems at the beginning. Their main aim is to improve their financial situation, as Paola wants to open an elegant boutique in the city. This starts creating a great sense of frustration in Tony, who has given up his real passion, painting. When he meets Chiara, a rich art expert who admires his work, Tony cannot deal with his private life and his passion anymore, and everything starts falling apart.
Perfetta Illusione shows us various dichotomies: Milan as the capital of fashion, art and luxury, but also a city that hides grim outskirts. The dichotomy of art, which is supposed to be a means of communication, but is often used as a mere means of production. Love takes double forms too, as a form of expression and repression.
I enjoyed the main message of the film, which is the fact that we are often misled by our desires to succeed. The protagonist is disappointing as a person, but he's also the real and only hero, true to what really makes sense to him: art. The other characters show us how mediocre and despicable greed is.