Bedrock Taboo

By R.S.

STAY AS YOU ARE Directed by Alberto Lattuada Screenplay by Alberto Lattuada and Enrico Oldoini

Romantic fictions depend on difficulty. Something has to keep the lovers apart for a while to build suspense and the audience's sympathy before they can get together. And, of course, there has to be something to sunder them at the end. But nowadays all the old reliable problems -- differences of years, background and religion, for example -- are carelessly surmounted all the time by lovers. So the search for something to deter, for a few reels, a middleaged, middle-class Marcello Mastroianni from turning his one-night stand with Nastassia Kinski, a spunky student, into a full-scale affair has led the creators of this film to bedrock taboo: the possibility of incest.

Mastroianni has no sooner bedded the girl than he learns there is a chance that she might be his daughter, the issue of one of his youthful liaisons. The mother is long dead, and the truth is never definitively determined, but the scandalous possibility is not to be taken too literally anyway; it serves mainly as something for a naturally cautious, rather distracted male to employ as justification for his hesitations. Even without it the man evidently would come to resist the impulsiveness and vitality of his young lover. When she finally leaves him, it is not the taboo that drives them apart, but her romantic insistence on ending the affair at its peak, before quarrelsomeness sets in.

Despite its predictability, this relationship has a certain charm, thanks largely to the acting of the principals.

Mastroianni is one of the few actors who can play weakness and retain an audience's sympathy, mostly because of his ability to make sweet-tempered comedic comments on male vulnerability. Kinski is simply ravishing, genuinely sexy and high-spirited without being painfully aggressive about it. The result is a surprisingly pleasant diversion. --R.S.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.