This is the passionate, tragic, acid, perversely funny story of a love triangle -- at one point, almost a ménage-à-trois -- involving bricklayer Oreste (Mastroianni in one of his very best performances, a sort of grotesque version of his character in "I Compagni"), flower-seller Adelaide (isn't it time we acknowledged Monica Vitti as THE most accomplished Italian comedienne ever? And being that gorgeous didn't hurt either) and pizzaiolo Nello (Giancarlo Giannini in a star-making role). With this film, Ettore Scola proved to be the great new voice in commedia all'italiana, a deserving heir to the maestri of this great tradition (DeSica, early Fellini, Germi, Monicelli, Risi) but adding steamier sarcasm and corrosiveness in his pitiless criticism of Italian society and its conservative mores.
We, as the audience, play a very important part here: it's to us (the invisible judge of a trial) that Oreste, Adelaide and Nello present their cases in the flashbacks that shows us the different angles of their convoluted story of friendship, love, betrayal and attempted murders/ suicides, in a sort of comedic Rashomon. The expertise of Scola's writing and the charisma of the starring trio make us care a lot for those hopeless losers, so unmistakably human.
Scola achieves a very rare thing: he uses caricature, comedic clichés and grotesqueness and raises them to refined art, craftily mixing tragedy and comedy with political overtones and social satire. This is on the same level as (and is a sort of cross between) Scola's masterpieces "C'Eravamo Tanto Amati" and "Brutti Sporchi Cattivi". You can do no wrong here: this is a delight that keeps your brain working AND your laughing muscles contracting, an achievement that sounds almost paradoxical by today's moronic, puerile standards of film comedy.
We, as the audience, play a very important part here: it's to us (the invisible judge of a trial) that Oreste, Adelaide and Nello present their cases in the flashbacks that shows us the different angles of their convoluted story of friendship, love, betrayal and attempted murders/ suicides, in a sort of comedic Rashomon. The expertise of Scola's writing and the charisma of the starring trio make us care a lot for those hopeless losers, so unmistakably human.
Scola achieves a very rare thing: he uses caricature, comedic clichés and grotesqueness and raises them to refined art, craftily mixing tragedy and comedy with political overtones and social satire. This is on the same level as (and is a sort of cross between) Scola's masterpieces "C'Eravamo Tanto Amati" and "Brutti Sporchi Cattivi". You can do no wrong here: this is a delight that keeps your brain working AND your laughing muscles contracting, an achievement that sounds almost paradoxical by today's moronic, puerile standards of film comedy.