I bought La Visita having watched Adua e le Compagne and then wondered what else Pietrangeli had directed that I could get hold of with English subtitles. La Visita is at least as good as Adua and features another great performance from Sandra Milo. She is a thirty-something small town woman called Pina who decides that the time has come to get married and so places an advert in the paper in the hope of finding a suitable man. After some correspondence with Adolfo she invites him to come to her home for the day so that they can get to know each other and it is this day, along with a few flashbacks, that provides the whole of the movie. We are introduced to Pina as she prepares to meet Adolfo at the railway station – heavily made up, sashaying around in a white suit and adjusting the poster of the Tower Of Pisa in the waiting room so it doesn't lean. Pietrangeli sets up a caricature of a slightly dim and frivolous woman then spends the rest of the film subtly undermining it as we come to realise that Pina is shrewder, more capable and yet more vulnerable than at first glance. Sandro Milo is an intelligent comic actress and gives her character a great deal of warmth and humanity so that we root for her all the way. She makes us will Adolfo to be the man she wants him to be and then, when he clearly falls short, makes us desperately hope that she will see through him. After a day of incident where the two get to know each other and Adolfo meets all the friends and neighbours in Pina's life, the film culminates with great sympathy and insight in a way which is just about perfect. This is a very funny and ultimately moving film which deserves to be seem by a much wider audience.
