The tumultuous and turbulent period of Italy's politics during the dying days of its Communist Party during an internal division that led to its dissolution works as
a background for a political romantic comedy directed by the great Ettore Scola ("A Special Day", "Le Bal"). The movie deals not only with the struggle of ideals
inside a basic unit - a political party - but also how this struggle can affect apparently perfect relationships. "Mario, Maria and Mario" presents a potential love
triangle where a woman is torn apart by her husband of many years and father of their children and a younger guy (also married) she met and exchanged thoughts about life
and politics during one of the many group meeetings they attend. It gets weird: both men are called Mario.
Housewife Maria (Valeria Cavalli) is happily married with Mario (Giulio Scarpati), a journalist who covers the daily activities of the Italian Communist Party
and where both are very active as members. But at the turn of the decade their party is struggling on different fronts, wheter to remain focused on their leftist past
and preserving old traditions that date back after the end of fascism and WWII, or to evolve and to a more modern aspect and sympathize with the right. Veterans in the
business and old friends on similar causes suddenly are changed to bitter enemies and each meeting has discussion in to find what's the new direction of such idealistic
party. Newcomer in that particular meeting is another Mario (Enrico Lo Verso), a modest and shy worker who introduces himself and gets acquainted with the couple since
their kids go to the same school but the interaction is mostly destined to Maria since she's the one who picks up the kids.
While the movie doesn't follow a typical Hollywood story neither use of similar devices, yet a bond is formed between those two and the perfect husband is left
aside as he's too focused in following the politics (he's a key member of the party) and it becomes such a nuisance that small quarrels between him and Maria become more
frequent each days goes by. But her relation with the other Mario isn't all that clear and easy. She holds herself to a long time in order to accept an invitation of his
to go to a cinema and have some drink; she changes her mind in crazed ways to the point of driving herself all the way to his shop and then drive away with her car in an
insane manner. Somehow, things go well since they have many life points in common and by that time she's committed to whatever he says about politics, which may be
contrary to her husband's position. Will there ever be a change or things will stay the same as it ever was?
It's interesting to follow the parallel made by Mr. Scola and his sister Silvia Scola (writers of the movie) in showing two possible disintegrations facing
similar obstacles, wheter to face the unpredictable future and a new reality or to stay rooted with a conservative state and what it is known (which can be viewed as
good and safe but also as problematic or without risks since it doesn't change). Problem is that the ultimate message takes too long to get developed and for a long time
we are left to follow a lot about Maria taking care of loud kids in countless situations and we don't have time enough to follow the lover and his routine (one would
say it's a love quarter since he's also married but his wife is barely there). There's almost zero efforts in concentrating on why Maria should invest on the affair and
too much random time where the trio stays away from each other without possible reasoning (she gets awfully sick out of the blue).
The main issue some ideas might (and will) have is: can a political romantic comedy succeed? Sort of. It's most of a matter where you either have an open mind of
political issues and Mr. Scola film devotes plenty of time to such issues - which is a little annoying- or either one knows the exact background used for this particular
story. But the movie works as a comedy with some romance thrown in. There's amusing moments - the night out after the movie date is lovely - but it's far from huge
hilarity. The characters are full of life and emotions and become fun to watch, they feel and they look real outside of perfect propaganda types where everybody is
successful and beautiful but their love life is a mess.
A lesser work by a creative filmmaker but it's one that deserves some attention and some praise. It's good but far away from his poetic masterpieces from previous
decades. It's less poetic both in visual terms and words, this was wildly wordy that sometimes misses the right emotion or the right way to connect with an
audience. The major perfect note he achived here and its an element he uses in many of his other films is the nostalgia element, to miss a different period in time. Here,
it's exemplified through the party discussions where the debate of ideas are eloquent yet loud but never violent, unlike what the world would become in the years after its
release and at the same time he showed us exactly how certain heated issues would be treated in the years to come (already a fact back then) with a mindless younger
generation prasing extreme values of an era they didn't lived but they were violent enough to force their ideals on others - this comes late in the movie and almost diverges into
a more dramatic and missplaced manner. He wasn't wrong about it, the times changed exactly like that and it isn't exactly because of polar opposites; internal divisions
of a same union can cause those as well. And it did. 7/10.
