Plaisirs de femme

Disagree completely with the comment. This film is based on a novel by Alberto Moravia who was a very famous italian writer whose books has been made into film by various directors including Godard. This can be a bad film for the ones who has seen little and probably interested in action and blockbuster stuff, in that case yes, avoid it like a plague. You'll get bored. But I suggest the vision of this movie to a mature viewer or at least someone who appreciate good cinema.

This the story of a middle-aged woman (Stefania Sandrelli) who is trying to regain the attention of her long-time husband (whose apparently unaware he's married to an Italian sex bomb, middle-aged or not). When she finds out he is going with younger women and prostitutes, she concocts a hare-brained scheme to shock him to his senses by setting up an assignation with the couple's own teenage daughter (Amanda Sandrelli)! This definitely seems like a bad idea--apparently, the mother character hasn't seen many Italian films of this era where it wasn't uncommon for mother's boyfriends, stepfathers, and even fathers to wind up sleeping with their girlfriend's daughter, their step-daughter, or even their own daughter! Without spoiling it, this isn't as perverse as it could be (the younger Sandrelli doesn't even have nude scenes), but is an odd vehicle for a real-life mother and daughter to say the least.

Stefania Sandrelli is the obviously more famous of the two actresses. She first drew attention in the early 1960's when SHE was a beautiful teenager in films like "Seduced and Abandoned". In the 1980's she had a lot of roles as sexy middle-age mothers in films like this, "Desideria", and most famously, she played the mother of 17-year-old Penelope Cruz in "Jamon, Jamon" where the two of them should have won some kind of award for literally being the sexiest mother-daughter combo (who could have REALLY been mother and daughter) ever. Amanda Sandrelli can't really compete with Penelope Cruz or even her own middle-age mother here, but she's definitely pretty and not a bad actress. Unfortunately, she came of age just as the once vaunted Italian film industry began its slow implosion, She is good in this and the excellent 80's giallo "La Casa di Buon Ritorno", but she hasn't had anywhere near the career of her mother.

I wouldn't recommend this to your more committed perverts who harbor mother-daughter fantasies (I'm more of an uncommitted pervert). For everyone else though, it is very well acted and a lot more classy than its sleazy plot might suggest. Check it out.