Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Pluskylang Great Film overall

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Mike German This excellent Helen Mirren version of TW's great story does well to portray Mrs. Stones's stalker as a (once?) attractive man, no matter how down and out he has become. By doing so, his past becomes clearer: isn't it possible that he too was one of Rome's handsome young gigolos before time and circumstances caught up with him and frayed, not just his once fashionable clothes - of which we are given glimpses - and appearance, but also his already flawed character? And, assuming that background, isn't it more likely that, having dwelt on and rejected his past profession, if not much of himself, he has now become a vengeful murderer? Given this history, the view that he kills Mrs. Stone makes more sense, for both of them, from a "divine justice" perspective, than does the two of them living not-so-happily ever after in some sort of protecting/protected relationship, that probably didn't turn out to be so protracted as others have suggested.

David Callahan I confess that this second filmed version is my only real familiarity with the story. I had heard that the end was supposed to represent a de facto suicide. It may actually help not to have too many antecedents in this case because the ending here seems to be suggesting (or at least allowing for) a resolution that is quite different from suicide. It is Paolo who introduces the foreshadow of death into the story by telling Karen a morbid cautionary tale about an unfortunate woman of similar circumstance in order to put Karen back in her place. I don't know that it has more of the inevitability of truth about it than any of the rest of his braggadocio. Paolo is abusive because he resents his economic need to prostitute himself. Karen is vulnerable to Paolo's cruelty because she is not facing facts, i.e., facts about her age, her talent, and her need for love. She speaks of their shared "loss of dignity," but it is actually illusion that she is shedding, especially the illusion that Paolo is anything more than a prostitute with aristocratic pretensions. The film helps us to see this by continually implying comparisons between Paolo and the unwashed but rather attractive young stalker who endeavors to capture Karen's attention. It seems to me that what is more inevitable than Karen's embrace of this man as a form of suicide is that she should be struck by the similarity between his importuning and Paolo's game. I can imagine as well that she should come to prefer the more straightforward, less pretentious arrangement that the final scene suggests. Would it truly be less dignified than what she has just been through?There is still ambiguity, of course. If in her need for love Karen decides to take beautiful boys twice a day "for medicinal purposes" until the love virus subsides (as her Tennessee Williams-like friend advises in the beginning) she may indeed be risking a violent end, but it also may cure her. She has already known the adoring love of her late husband. She may not need to replicate it after all. In dispensing with pretense, she would be in a better position to know and come to terms with her realities. At the end of the film, the way forward for Karen may well be a more honest accommodation of mutual need beginning with this stranger. It is certainly a delicious irony of Williams' writing that whichever Karen has in mind, either way she will set herself free.

raejeanowl I love Helen Mirren. She is a beautiful, mature woman and a fine actress. Unfortunately, like a role undertaken by the character Mrs. Stone in the story, she is far too old for this casting. Likewise, Brian Dennehy is far too young to be her "much older" and ailing husband. I do wonder if the original 1961 film with Vivien Lee and Warren Beatty had similar chasms of verisimilitude and belief to leap.A failing, has-been actress and her wealthy and asexual or impotent husband take advantage of his bad health to book a face-saving trip to Europe. The husband dies en route. During her mourning period, Mrs. Stone is forced to occupy herself in Rome with post-war society, largely comprised of bitter and now-impoverished Italian royalty and a few lightweight and false-faced inter-continental "friends." I do not understand how Mrs. Stone's character unfolds and becomes so dependent upon the gigolo who has been assigned to compensate for her years without a sex life (and bilk her of whatever money he can) by a hungry Contessa. I also don't understand how she, starved in her marriage or not, is supposed to be so constantly sexually ready at the age of "50." Nevertheless, Mrs. Stone in some respects appears to be resigned to the loss of her youth and realistic about the affair; then, in the next moment, behaves like a lovesick girl. She has a great deal going for her and with her intellectual and financial resources one wonders why she did not move on voluntarily,geographically or romantically. She did not need to be lonely or immobilized. I suppose these developments say more about author Tennessee Williams, his mindset and prejudices, and his era than reality today.One curious character throughout the movie is a young, homeless and starving stalker, who is every bit if not more beautiful than Paolo the gigolo. He does seem to worship Mrs. Stone, who is indeed a handsome and well-put-together lady for her age. She is aware of and appears to be repulsed by his constant nearness, as he is socially beyond redemption, not just in his impoverished disarray, but his vulgar and undisciplined habits.The gigolo increasingly abuses and humiliates her, and inevitably breaks with her under pressure from the Contessa and perhaps his own restlessness. He has cruelly teased Mrs. Stone by comparing her to others of her ilk who are typically found with their throats slit.The final scene has Mrs. Stone flinging the keys to the gates of her villa down to the homeless stalker. You see him approach her and her standing in wait with a pained face and eyes downcast.I did not interpret this to be a romantic or sexual scene in the least. It was chilling and tragic. The phrase I used to my husband was "suicide by psycho."

bbboomer49-1 I don't know of what social class Rodrigo Santoros character had been before the war but I do know Mussolini did favor the aristocratic crowd prior to the war, causing the middle class Italian to increasingly fear and hate him. I do remember my grandmother talking about his breaking up the unions and doing everything to help the wealthy. Santoro did not need to speak, his expressions and his eyes spoke for him. I don't believe he was anyone to be feared. He was homeless and hungry and probably ill. This wealthy lady represented life and survival to him, but how was he to catch her eye when he had nothing at all to offer but himself? The night that she was standing outside the restaurant and jumped at him demanding to know what he wanted from her showed us she had nothing to fear from him. He backed away and appeared as if he was about to cry. When she finally threw him the keys his eyes filled with hope as if the gates of heaven had been open to him. I believe he went to her, not to harm her but with the hope of becoming a very devoted companion to her. That in their union he would survive and she would not be lonely anymore.