(1968)
1.5
Craig Butler
Fans of Vittorio De Sica, Faye Dunaway and Marcello Mastroianni should do themselves a favor and skip Amanti. Actually, everyone should do themselves a favor and skip Amanti. This is one of those films that one watches with one's mouth gaping; one's hand flies to the box to check and re-check the credits, simply refusing to believe that a director with the proven talent and insight of De Sica could ever have created a piece of trash like this. And yet it appears that he did. Rabid fans will undoubtedly find touches of his style here and there, but it's not worth sitting through this tawdry soap opera just for that. The dialogue in Amanti is simply excruciatingly bad; one grinds one's teeth, waiting for one wretched scene to get over with, sure that the next one simply has to be better; yet it rarely is. The pretentiousness is bad enough, but it can be forgiven; an artist can miss his goals when aiming high. What's harder to forgive is the schmaltz factor, which is unbearably high. Given the material, perhaps the actors really cannot be blamed. Dunaway looks sensational, of course, but her performance is totally self-indulgent and off-the-mark; Mastroianni comes across as amazingly bland. One at least expects fireworks from a pairing like this, but it's all fizzle. The scenery is attractive, the clothes are interesting and Ella Fitzgerald is welcome crooning the title tune. Otherwise, there's little here to recommend.
Amanti on AllMovie
Amanti (1968)
