User reviews

This movie is really a little gem. I need a little effort to defend this argument. It's enough to remember that it is directed by Mario Monicelli, the GREAT director (La Grande Guerra, I soliti Ignoti, Guardie e Ladri, L'Armata Brancaleone and many others), and that it won seven David di Donatello, an important Italian movie award, including best movie and best director.

The cast is also incredible, as it groups together so many European icons: from Sweden Liv Ullman (the protagonist of many Ingmar Bergman movies); from France, the beautiful Catherine Deneuve, and the wonderful actors Philippe Noiret and Bernard Blier; from Italy the divine Stefania Sandrelli, always beautiful and realistic, and the already very very good actress Athina Cenci.

After the cynic "Parenti serpenti", Monicelli again films a portrait of another Italian family. There is not a real protagonist in this movie, the protagonist is the family. There is a lot of fun, but also some thoughtful moments, as always in Monicelli's movies. All the males in this movie end up revealing their egoistic nature or stupidity. A concept that the Italian Comedy of 50s and 60s (which Monicelli belonged to) already expressed and elaborated extensively. The difference here is that there is hope, and this hope resides in women.

I don't want to say that this is a movie just for women. It's fun, it's serious, and it does a very nice homage to women and sisterhood.

I say don't miss this movie, males and females, I am sure you won't regret it.

Nothing to share with the masterpieces of the fifties, and even with more solid screenplays like Parenti serpenti (Poisonous Relations). It is unbelievable that this modest film, in which most of the great stars are completely miscast, has won so many awards (all Italian, by the way). The humor is poor, the story is full of stereotypes, the dialogs have no strength: sorry for the fans of Monicelli (I am one) but this film adds nothing to his career. Let's take the episode in which uncle Gugo is taken to a sort of clinic for mental diseases, where an odd priest, more similar to a salesman, persuades Elena and others to leave the old man there, without any formal and medical discussion; or the other, in which the same uncle Guga, after a so called "car accident", goes back home alone, 20 km far. Is it a farce, or something serious ? Let's forget it.

Mario Monicelli embodied my personal ideal of filmmaker: prolific, wit, kind and committed to comedy.

He wrote for himself and for others, directed the best European actors of his time and on my arbitrary opinion he is the real father of 'Comedy Italian Style'.

The present title is an incredibly pleasant 2-hour piece that celebrates the feminine way of dealing with life compared with the stressful / sometimes overbearing and selfish ways of males.

As I stated in the Title, I think this was the last great movie from the master, who was 71 at the time: he went on directing a dozen more flicks in the following 20 years but the present title is the last I feel worthy of comparison with Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958), The Great War (1959) or Il Marchese del Grillo (1981).

I know that Italy had Fellini, Rossellini, Visconti and many other great directors, I'm aware that Monicelli never won an Oscar (he was nominated 6 times) but his movie list is outstanding and everything he did shows such grace and such a natural and unaffected style that I'm sure people will love his timeless classics forever.

Enjoy.