In Naples, in the Second World War, the wolf businessman Domenico Soriano (Marcello Mastroianni) meets the seventeen years old whore Filumena Marturano (Sophia Loren) in a brothel during an allied bombing. Two years later, in the post-war, they meet each other by chance and begin a long affair. For twenty-two years, Filumena is his mistress and administrates his shops in Naples while Domenico is traveling. When Domenico decides to marry the young cashier of his bakery, Filumena lures him as if she were near to death and he marries her. Later he annuls their matrimony, and she tells him that she has three sons that she raised secretly, one of them is his legitimate son but she does not disclose his identity. The middle-age Domenico uses the most different subterfuges trying to find which teenager might be his son. "Matrimonio all'Italiana" is a delightful and dramatic romantic comedy. Sophia Loren is awesome in the role of a loving woman and protective mother. Marcello Mastroianni is magnificent performing a wolf that sees that the time has passed and he has a son, making his middle-age crisis become an obsessive attempt to disclose the identity of his biological son in the funniest moments of this film. The direction of Vittorio De Sica is fantastic, developing the dramatic situation and the romance with touches of comedy, but never falling in the easiest way of transforming the theme in a corny melodrama. The last scene is beautiful and touching. My vote is eight. Title (Brazil): "Matrimônio à Italiano" ("Matrimony a la Italian")
Review of Marriage Italian Style
