The Visit (1963) User Reviews

Good Italian comedy

[bjacob · 7/10 · 9 August 2020]

This is a comical and sad study of characters. The portrait of men is especially cruel; we see three of them mostly on scene: one is stupid, the other coward and the third one mediocre. We wait for some kind of redemption, but it comes solely towards the assessment of the vast gulf between dream and reality.

Surprisingly, it will make you laugh, but mostly in despair of the cluelessness of the male characters. The lead lady, cunningly presented at the beginning like an airhead, will progressively reveal herself as the sane -- and smart -- one. We root for her and we feel sad that it ends in disappointment, but we also know that she will survive and thrive in spite of it.

Before online dating...

[skepticskeptical · 8/10 · 2 October 2020]

Despite being more than fifty years old, La visita manages to be fresh and incisive even today. It turns out that before online dating, there were people who searched for love in he classified ads of the newspaper (some still perhaps do). The story is at turns amusing and sad, following the attempt of two singles to decide whether or not they might be able to make it together.

Gorgeous cinematography. Intimate, convincing acting. All in all, quite good.

A warm and funny Italian movie that deserves to be better known.

[vwild · 10/10 · 15 October 2013]

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.

Another Italian masterpiece!

[RodrigAndrisan · 10/10 · 10 March 2019]

Four great actors, Sandra Milo, François Périer, Mario Adorf and Gastone Moschin, all outstanding, even in small roles such as Moschin and Adorf. Although he has a small role, Adorf steals the film, his character being the most comic and totally special. Antonio Pietrangeli, brilliant director. Superb music signed by Armando Trovajoli. A movie to be watched and watched again at any time.

Exceptional direction, acting, filming; memorable music

[adrianovasconcelos · 9/10 · 22 October 2023]

Really unfortunate that a director of Antonio Pietrangeli's quality had to die at the young age of 49. He looked set for even greater successes than LA VISITA (THE VISIT), ADUA E LE COMPAGNE, LA PARMIGIANA, among others.

He extracts a peerless performance from François Périer, as a solitary and selfish librarian called Adolfo who puts on a front of civility but is in fact a liar, a drunkard, a glutton, a user of others and a cheat, along with many other downsides to his character, all of which slowly emerge layer after layer.

Sandra Milo also delivers a top performance as the provincial Pina with Bushwoman-like buttocks but, in contrast with Adolfo, a sense of propriety that far surpasses his city (Rome) veneer.

Terrific show from Gastone Moschin, too, as the truck driver who Pina sees and loves, but has no hope of marrying because he is married and has kids. Eight years later, Moschin would deliver an equally short but memorable performance as Don Fanucci in GODFATHER II.

Very appropriate musical background, observant script brimming with details about the differences of city and countryside life, rich and poor, love and lust. Wonderful short sequence where two nuns laugh at Pina but promptly put on serious countenances when Pina returns... all without a spoken word, suggesting that Pina is far more intelligent than her country bckground might suggest.

This is a very honest film, right down to the final sequence.

Definite must-see. 9/10.