Critics reviews

One of Scola's most transcendent and trenchant films... Superbly played by Mastroianni, Gabriele is entirely convincing as a man whose entire life has been consumed by the act of hiding in plain sight, keeping his sexual orientation a secret from the rest of the world simply to survive. For her part, Sophia Loren's Antonietta is a remarkably complex characterization of a woman who has been treated as chattel by her husband.

Though it was shot three decades after the war, Ettore Scola's A Special Day (1977) remains one of the most telling films ever made about Italian Fascism, viewing the period's oppressive atmosphere and enforced flag-waving through the prism of a delicate human relationship between a man and a woman.

Thankfully, the film doesn't pretend that Gabriele suddenly undergoes a conversion, nor does it suggest that he's bisexual—their lovemaking is mostly a passive act of kindness on his part. What's troubling, rather, is the implicit suggestion that a woman can't be fulfilled unless she's getting properly laid. The carnal neediness is entirely hers, and comes off a bit demeaning.

A Special Day unfolds as a luminous, humanist two-hander, made more intriguing by Pasqualino De Santis's consistently sepia-toned cinematography.

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, in a "together again" appearance (1977), generate more nostalgia than drama in this frail social parable by Ettore Scola... Scola smothers his wistful love story (and it has its moments) under the dead weight of gratuitous politics, overly coy narrative tricks, and an ostentatious camera style.