Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Yes, Sophia Loren is breathtakingly beautiful in this movie - at times - but there is much more to it than that.This movie does a remarkable job of developing two characters, especially Loren's character, over more than 20 years. There are no stereotypes - the warm-hearted prostitute, etc. - here, no facile caricatures. Rather, Loren, directed by di Sica, is able to develop a complex and fascinating character who goes from a 17 year old girl to a woman in her 50s. Loren does this not with fancy make-up, etc., but by ACTING. She is believable as the terrified young girl thrown into prostitution by abject poverty; she is completely believable as the 50+ year old woman defending her three children. (She was 30 when she made this movie.) I couldn't stop watching this movie. Loren is so real in it that you HAVE to find out what will become of her character.This movie shows you what a good movie can be: something with complex, real characters whom you want to know more about. It is the complete opposite of the caricature-, stereotype-ridden formulaic pictures we get too often.

This film was done because Sophia Loren wanted to do an interpretation of Eduardo De Filippo's play. The movie lacks the proletariat and cultured feel of the play, but rather offers a stylized interpretation of a great comedy. Loren is a fine passive aggressive actress, who portrays a woman in love and a woman in love 20 years down the line. She has great comedic timing in this role, though she doesn't have the same grit as the theatrical character is meant to. The chemistry between Loren and Mastroianni has great tension. He straddles a line between slick and comically confused. The actors and director capture the madness of love in real life. The flashbacks of their love life is captivating and builds very well. As the secrets and emotions unfold, you are drawn into the romance and tension of it all. They do not write stories like this anymore. This is original, it has heart and comedy. It is a great film to let you laugh and reflect on life.

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")

"Marriage Italian Style" is director Vittorio De Sica's fourth collaboration with the actress Sophia Loren. Loren's sensual exiting beauty, fine comic timing, combined with a brilliant script and the rare chemistry with the co-star Marcello Mastroianni makes the film an excellent combination of a sparkling and amusing farce and a poignant drama of one woman's life and struggles in the post-war Italy. As Domenico Soriano, a wealthy, arrogant and selfish Neapolitan businessman, Mastroianni is on the verge of marrying a younger woman when he hears that his long time mistress, ex-prostitute Filomena, is on her deathbed. He rushes to her side and agrees to marry Filomena in hopes to soon become a widower but when she recovers "miraculously" he recognizes that her illness was only a trick. Then, in her flashbacks, we learn that she did it for the sake of her three children of whom Domenico knew nothing about and one of them (or maybe all) could be his... Mastroianni and Loren had perhaps the best on-screen chemistry ever; it is delight to see them together in this film as well as in "Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow" and "The Sunflowers" - little known but wonderful Soviet - Italian film, both by Vittorio De Sica. I also liked them together in Altman's "Prêt-à-Porter" (1994) aka "Ready to Wear". One scene in Marriage Italian Style should be on the list of the best ever filmed - young Filomena walks down a sidewalk in Naples to meet with Dominico and every man, regardless of his age stares at her with desire. I am a woman but I could not take my eyes off her - Cleopatra or Nefertity could've walked like that. My verdict - they don't make comedies like that anymore. 9.5/10