Forget Brancati, and forget Sicily. Lattuada is a master of literary adaptation, which doesn’t mean he made literal transcriptions of typographical lines into visual sequences, like an ordinary office clerk out of Gogol. Here Sicily is nothing more than a cultural magnet for poor Giovanni Percolla, catapulted to Milan, and lost between an all-too-real wife and a new Italian reality, eager to obtain washing machines, holidays, and suntans. Lando Buzzanca isn’t much as an actor, but when he rushes back home to his virgin aunts and his maid, always preparing juicy meals, who could say anything against him? Because that journey means that there’s nothing to do. Not anymore, not yet. That Milan can wait. The distance isn’t geographical, nor even less political or sociological, but only sentimental. Even before erotic. Giovanni Percolla needs to grow up. A thing he doesn’t appear to be willing to do. At least not yet. Meaning that, thinking it over, it’s not so true that good old Brancati has nothing to do with this movie.

Gualtiero De Marinis