Un amore a Roma

Granted the skill with which director Dino Risi involves us in this melodrama (not his usual comedy) of an aristocrat besotten with a pretty blonde actress he finally dumps, one has to ask from today's perspective whether there is a double standard involved in the depiction of the behavior of the sexes. And whether the intellectual/class distinction in the story between the man's scholarly milieu and the girl's more tawdry show business and moviemaking background is not explored in enough depth. The hero from whose narrative perspective the plot unfolds is shown breaking up with one woman (though he will see more of her later) and teetering on the edge of marrying yet another and he doesn't waste any time jumping into bed with them when he wants. But the girl is supposedly amoral because she has a few relationships with other men that he becomes jealous of. As for the class distinction, we see little evidence of what the man has actually accomplished so his occasional comments on the superficiality of others of the vulgarity of the girl's acting profession come off as perfunctory.