Since it combines so many elements I love, I was primed to like A RATHER COMPLICATED GIRL. Alas, it's underwhelming.
I love all of Alberto Moravia's highly pessimistic writing, and Jean Sorel starred in my favorite all-time adaptation of Moravia: FROM A ROMAN BALCONY. But here we have Sorel with beard looking like Franco Nero and playing a rotter -not my cup of tea.
Heroine Catherine Spaak was practically #1 in Europe during this period (since forgotten alas), having made her obligatory Hollywood debut starring in HOTEL and her biggest hit THE LIBERTINE about to become one of the biggest imports on the U.S. circuit. But she too is disappointing, given a very unbecoming short wig to wear throughout, and cavorting in rather tiresome Swinging Sixties fashion.
Even director Damiano Damiani had an off day. He had made one of his central works DAY OF THE OWL, starring Nero, and was really getting his groove on. But the "grooviness" of COMPLICATED GIRL is instantly dated, a relic of the '60s.
Film's opening is certainly stylish -after we watch Sorel do some experimental wine making, he is on the phone imagining a bevy of beautiful topless women. This certainly gets the juices flowing, but unfortunately star Spaak teases the viewer for the rest of the film, leaving nudity to the extras.
She's introduced on a motorbike, the stereotypical '60s free spirit. With mod and pop art settings throughout, the film visually falls neatly into the category typified by Tinto Brass's DEADLY SWEET and Giuilio Questi's DEATH LAID AN EGG. But what happens here is not as far out.
Instead we watch Sorel and Spaak in a rather tedious romance, whose ups and downs are fairly predictable. Hedonism is the theme and a certain nastiness creeps in, as in Nero's constant Super 8mm shooting of pretty girls and his put-downs of a cute Ewa Aulin type who briefly catches his fancy.
Film belatedly picks up interest when Florinda Bolkan enters the scene, looking at her most beautiful. This was her screen debut and she steals all her scenes, exuding a sexual sophistication.
SPOILER ALERT: Plot takes an absurd twist when Sorel, evidently with a Nietschean streak in him, intentionally runs Bolkan over with his sports car, and later seems positively proud of his act when he gloats about it. He apparently has a dissociative personality, but I found these aspects of the film quite distasteful.
His comeuppance does not come by getting caught (it remains an unsolved case of hit & run), but rather getting beaten to a pulp by previously wimpy seeming Luigi Proietti who he mistreated ever so casually early in the film. Obviously Moravia and Damiani wanted to emphasize the irony of such cause & effect arcs in one life (karma?), but it left me just as cold as any of the more recent crappy Chaos Theory-driven narratives.
Technically this is a well-made production, with snazzy musical score by Fabio Fabor (a 1-shot, perhaps a pseudonym?) and lush lensing by the always reliable Roberto Gerardi. It just doesn't add up to much, a victim of that wonderful era of OVER-production, when stars like Sorel and Spaak were working non-stop, batting out five films a year, rain or shine.
I love all of Alberto Moravia's highly pessimistic writing, and Jean Sorel starred in my favorite all-time adaptation of Moravia: FROM A ROMAN BALCONY. But here we have Sorel with beard looking like Franco Nero and playing a rotter -not my cup of tea.
Heroine Catherine Spaak was practically #1 in Europe during this period (since forgotten alas), having made her obligatory Hollywood debut starring in HOTEL and her biggest hit THE LIBERTINE about to become one of the biggest imports on the U.S. circuit. But she too is disappointing, given a very unbecoming short wig to wear throughout, and cavorting in rather tiresome Swinging Sixties fashion.
Even director Damiano Damiani had an off day. He had made one of his central works DAY OF THE OWL, starring Nero, and was really getting his groove on. But the "grooviness" of COMPLICATED GIRL is instantly dated, a relic of the '60s.
Film's opening is certainly stylish -after we watch Sorel do some experimental wine making, he is on the phone imagining a bevy of beautiful topless women. This certainly gets the juices flowing, but unfortunately star Spaak teases the viewer for the rest of the film, leaving nudity to the extras.
She's introduced on a motorbike, the stereotypical '60s free spirit. With mod and pop art settings throughout, the film visually falls neatly into the category typified by Tinto Brass's DEADLY SWEET and Giuilio Questi's DEATH LAID AN EGG. But what happens here is not as far out.
Instead we watch Sorel and Spaak in a rather tedious romance, whose ups and downs are fairly predictable. Hedonism is the theme and a certain nastiness creeps in, as in Nero's constant Super 8mm shooting of pretty girls and his put-downs of a cute Ewa Aulin type who briefly catches his fancy.
Film belatedly picks up interest when Florinda Bolkan enters the scene, looking at her most beautiful. This was her screen debut and she steals all her scenes, exuding a sexual sophistication.
SPOILER ALERT: Plot takes an absurd twist when Sorel, evidently with a Nietschean streak in him, intentionally runs Bolkan over with his sports car, and later seems positively proud of his act when he gloats about it. He apparently has a dissociative personality, but I found these aspects of the film quite distasteful.
His comeuppance does not come by getting caught (it remains an unsolved case of hit & run), but rather getting beaten to a pulp by previously wimpy seeming Luigi Proietti who he mistreated ever so casually early in the film. Obviously Moravia and Damiani wanted to emphasize the irony of such cause & effect arcs in one life (karma?), but it left me just as cold as any of the more recent crappy Chaos Theory-driven narratives.
Technically this is a well-made production, with snazzy musical score by Fabio Fabor (a 1-shot, perhaps a pseudonym?) and lush lensing by the always reliable Roberto Gerardi. It just doesn't add up to much, a victim of that wonderful era of OVER-production, when stars like Sorel and Spaak were working non-stop, batting out five films a year, rain or shine.