Sightlines · reception

How My Friends was received

1975 · Mario Monicelli · My Friends on Sightlines

The arc

A massive box-office smash in Italy — the hit of its 1975–76 season — even as some critics winced at its cruelty and cynicism; half a century on it's canonized as a late masterpiece of commedia all'italiana and sits on Italy's official list of '100 Italian films to be saved'.

What’s debated

The perennial fight: is it a merciless portrait of middle-aged men refusing to grow up, or does it secretly adore them — and can non-Italians ever fully get it when the untranslatable 'supercazzola' gibberish is half the joke?

Its footprint

It gave Italian the word 'supercazzola' — the art of confident nonsense-speak, now in actual Italian dictionaries — plus 'zingarata' for a prank escapade; the train-station slapping spree is one of Italian comedy's most re-enacted images.

Where it stands

An absolute 'you must have seen this' national monument in Italy, and a delighted cult discovery for everyone else on Letterboxd.

Did you know? It was conceived and co-written as a Pietro Germi film; terminally ill, Germi handed it to his friend Monicelli, who moved the story to Florence and released it with the credit 'un film di Pietro Germi' as a tribute after Germi's death.