From an overview it's a simple, restrained chamber drama, never reaching too far beyond the viewer's expectations, but its modest content is devised with wisdom and sensitivity. By fault of social and historical circumstances beyond its control, A Special Day's homosexual theme seems anachronistic; at once daring and long overdue. In spite of that inescapable discomfort, the gay character is respectfully portrayed.

I need to rewatch it. Que eu me lembre, é um filme suave.

Fascism in a beautiful family, wonderful isn't it?

Two great performances by Loren and Mastroianni; it delievers it's messege succesfully. The last scene was quite thought-provoking. Scola's analysis of the Fascist ideology throught the film is quite interesting. Overall, a good, solid film.

There's some good stage business about the uncomfortable host-guest relationship between apartment-house neighbors, but the movie is mainly just bread-and-butter Italian humanism, beginning with one of those squalid family breakfast scenes: the boy smoking furtively in the john, the girlie picture hidden under the pillow, the teenage sexbomb doing her whorish makeup, and the bedraggled mother bumping her head routinely on the low-hanging kitchen lamp.