A story of love and humanity against a fascist backdrop tends to have viewers falling over themselves with their praise and this is also true for "A Special Day" with Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. There is indeed a lot to like about this movie, not least two incredibly strong and charismatic performances by the actors playng the two lead characters - a housewife and a sacked radio presenter who get close to each other despite (at least initially) politically opposing views.
However, for me, there were also some major flaws to that movie. I am not aware of it being adopted from a stage play, but it would not surprise me at all if it was. The characters are overdrawn and the dialog is often stilted - something that I can quite happily accept on stage but I don't like in cinema (as an aside, I watched the English dubbed version - I was surprised that this movie even has been dubbed, and also a bit disappointed as I don't mind subtitles and find dubbing usually unreal and jarring, but have to say that in this case, the dubbing was technically excellent and hardly noticeable) . One example is Gabriele's behaviour when they first meet which is eccentric, if not rude and overbearing; I don't think that Antonietta would have put up with him for very long. The love making scenes (if you can call them that) are hard to watch because of their awkwardness, but the worst is that the creators thought that having the characters embark on a sexual affair in the first place was a good idea, this also does not feel real for the characters and I believe that the story would have been much stronger had the feelings of the characters for each other remained on a platonic level.
I want to emphasise that many of the good things said by other reviewers about this movie are true and I don't need to repeat them here, but this is not the unflawed masterpiece that it thinks it is.
Review of A Special Day
