Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Madilyn Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

zetes Kind of a smaller version of La Dolce Vita with a female lead, this slice of 1960s Roman life is great in its own right. Stefania Sandrelli (probably best remembered as the woman who shared a sexy dance with Dominque Sanda in The Conformist) plays an aspiring actress and model who spends her nights partying her ass off and her mornings alone. The plot is pretty simple and pretty predictable, but director Pietrangeli shoots the film in a very experiential style - it feels like you're partying alongside Sandrelli, and it's just a really wonderful experience. Sandrelli herself is outstanding. It's a character that could come off as a cliché, but she plays her so knowingly and passionately. It's very, very easy to fall in love. The film is stuffed full of wonderful '60s pop songs (the only ones I recognized were by Millie Small, a Jamaican ska artist best known for her hit "My Boy Lollipop"), tremendous clothes and hairdos, and that crisp 1960s black and white. A must-see for anyone who loves the Italian films of this era.

mackjay2 Ironically titled, beautifully shot and well-acted, this is a real 'sleeper' from late in the Golden Age of Italian cinema. Stefania Sandrelli perfectly embodies the naive girl from the provinces who wants to be a star. We never know what she can do well, apart from be charming and look terrific. But she believes there is a place for her in the firmament of the entertainment industry. Adriana gets to live only on the edge of the life she thinks she wants (nice apartment, clothes, wigs, parties, making money from sexual favors or modeling). From the start, she is taken advantage of by 'agents' or others who claim to be helping her. The numerous men she encounters are mostly ciphers themselves. Their only advantage is that they understand the ruthless nature of their world. Adriana is just their latest victim. One charmer skips out in the early morning from a hotel encounter, leaving Adriana stuck with the bill. Another, after a sexual episode, asks her to call another girl for him. In a brilliantly cringing scene, poor Adriana is humiliated in front of friends, as her long-awaited 'film debut' only serves to use her for comic fodder.The film uses flashback to fill in Adriana's past: she was a normal, if very pretty, girl whose family has already nearly forgotten her. Like many of her kind, she craves the "love" that stardom should bring. As often with serious Italian film, the outcome is pessimistic. Director Pietrangeli paces the film well and integrates the brief flashbacks to telling effect. Locations are well-used and often beautifully photographed. The film can occasionally remind a viewer of Robert Bresson's work: much faster paced, and with a higher energy level, but with a similar outlook on youth and the harshness of contemporary life. I'd go as far to say if this film had been directed by Bresson, it would be far better known. The international view of Italian cinema at the time was dominated by Fellini, Antonioni and a few others, while Pietrangeli, Monicelli and many fine film makers remain to be re-discovered. Here is a great place to start that re- discovery.

liehtzu Another of the many Italian movies about alienation in the post-war years, very well made, beautifully shot, often interesting - but not up there with L'AVVENTURA or LA DOLCE VITA. The problem is the main character, one of the horde of young, nouveau-American European youth of the 1960s, ignorant of the war or much else besides, who only enjoys dancing to moronic music, polishing her nails, and reading comic books. Of course, she wants to be an actress. She goes through as many hairstyles as boyfriends in the course of the film, and though among them there are some recognizable faces (Franco Nero is the shy young auto mechanic here; the following year he would be cold-blooded killer DJANGO), the hairstyles tend to be more memorable than the men.The problem with making a movie about a character as vapid as this young woman is that her story isn't compelling. Even though we find out later that she's really just a poor girl from the country from a hard-luck farm family, even though we cringe at the number of times she's exploited through the course of the film - there is one particularly cruel scene in which a young man, after sleeping with her, has her telephone the girl he really likes, just in case her mother answers - the life and death of a bubblegum-popping wannabe actress is not the stuff of great tragedy. She takes a leap just when self-awareness finally dawns: no one cares for her (except Nero's character, who she doesn't even notice), she's the butt of jokes, she really is just a beautiful idiot with no future once the looks fade. Of course, the real theme of the movie might be that thinking too much is a bad thing: in one telling sequence a jaded writer says as much to her, that her brainless, live-for-the-moment existence might be some kind of unconscious wisdom. But the life of the girl, who I suspect is a kind of symbol of the director's horror of modern Italy, grows a little tiresome before the end of the film.

drbagrov "Io La Conoscevo Bene" or "I Knew Her Well" in English translation is a somewhat different film from the rest made by Antonio Pietrangeli and one of his last before his premature death. The theme of loneliness and alienation is not new in cinema,but Pietrangeli takes it from a different angle: his heroine,the naive countryside girl Adriana,who dreams of a career as a star in Rome, is not an escapist or introvert;on the contrary, she tries her best to socialize and befriend people , but the results are most disappointing and frustrating - people just ignore her, use her, make fun of her,exploit her body and her good intentions.Nobody is taking her seriously.Is it our cruel modern world's trademark?Seems to be true.INDIFFERENCE also kills. The magnificent cast of the greatest of Italian stars , each of them playing very small episodes,give distinctive CHARACTERS, blood and flesh ,to their protagonists,though their screen life lasts no more than five minutes each. The soundtrack by Piero Piccioni,like the sound of a torn string in the middle of a tune, suggests a young life broken before it has blossomed. Stefania Sandrelli, still a TEENAGER(!!) ,performs in an amazingly mature and confident way.Though she had some experience of working with great directors before (Pietro Germi), her psychological portrayal of a silly girl mesmerized by the glitter of the big city is very deep and convincing. Of course, this film was the labour of love of Antonio Pitrangeli, a very experienced director, but somewhat underrated ( nobody would put him on a pedestal alongside Fellini or Visconti).This film, undoubtedly,would make film critics and the audience reconsider the hierarchy of the Italian cinema Olympus dwellers.