Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (December 31, 2024)
Do movie titles get much longer than The End of the World in Our Usual Bed in a Night Full of Rain? Probably, but I can’t think of any off the top of my head.
This 1978 flick introduces us to Lizzy (Candice Bergen), an American tourist in Italy. When she encounters a violent incident in a small town, local man Paolo (Giancarlo Giannini) assists her.
Paolo unsuccessfully attempts to woo Lizzy, an effort that ends in near rape. Despite this, the two eventually embark on a relationship filled with ups and downs.
Probably because I’m a crude American whose tastes run toward films made for our audiences, Lina Wertmüller exists as a filmmaker whose name I knew but nothing more. Unless one counts Guy Ritchie’s terrible 2002 flick Swept Away - a remake of Wertmüller’s 1974 effort Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August - Rain acts as my first exposure to the director’s work.
Does Rain prompt me to want to see more of Wertmüller’s filmography? No, as the film’s “battle of the sexes” comes light on insight and heavy on pretensions.
These pop up from the very start, as Rain introduces matters to us via an overacted Greek Chorus. They reveal that we’ll see the story in flashback, a choice that robs the tale of any real drama.
Granted, one could argue this adds tension, as we wonder how the passionate pair the film initially reveals will end up as a detached and resentful married couple. However, I think the structure feels more like a gimmick than anything productive.
Wertmüller’s cinematic techniques also fail here. She cuts away to various unnecessary images and pours on overwrought camera swoops and swirls that distract rather than enhance.
The choice to make Paolo attempt sexual assault when we first meet him also feels like a terrible decision. Not only does Paolo force himself on Lizzy, but also he gleefully boasts about his status as a rapist.
And yet Lizzy completely ignores this when they meet again down the road? Yes, I get that the social attitudes of 2024 differ from those of the late 1970s, but boy, it sure feels tough to swallow that Lizzy shrugs off Paolo’s eager attack.
Rain essentially relies on that most tired of narrative tropes for potential provocation: the mismatched couple who come together despite their differences. Worn out as that concept might be, I don’t object to it in the abstract.
However, Wertmüller finds nothing fresh to do with the characters or situations. Rain rushes through the Lizzzy/Paolo relationship in such a way that the lead roles never become more than thin stereotypes.
As such, we don’t connect to them. In particular, Giannani overacts a storm and makes Paolo a relentlessly annoying personality.
Some of that makes sense, but this remains problematic. Bergen and Giannini offer such different acting styles that they feel like they exist in different movies.
Again, I get that these aspects can reinforce the movie’s basic “women are from Venus, men are from Mars” conceit. Nonetheless, Bergen and Giannini never connect as actors or as a cinematic couple, and since the story revolves around their relationship, that turns into a problem.
The biggest issue remains the relentless lack of insight on display. Wertmüller pours on annoying filmmaking techniques in an attempt to hide the absence of substance her movie displays.
It doesn’t work. Rain turns into a tedious and pretentious exploration of tropes without much merit.
