There certainly must be a way to present Moravia's tale in cinematic form in a manner that suggests the art animating the story, but that will have to wait for some future occasion. It would help to have a director who had some subtlety or artistic talent - there's no evidence of any art (or much craft) in Francesco Maselli product here. A parade of dated stylistic effects, the whole thing suffers further from the lack of any nuanced acting. Steiger is unbelievable as an Italian, Cardinale merely pouts, Paulette Goddard seems to be imitating the aged Gloria Swanson in some other movie...and less about Shelley Winters' pathetic attempt to portray a complex Italian sophisticate later. Moravia's glimpse of the arid emotional state of Italian society after the War presumably requires nuanced writing and acting to bring off. Watching this film, which contains nothing like that, one can only wonder: could the original story really be this bad? The answer is, No, it's this film.
Review of Time of Indifference
