Another in a series of remasters of the lesser-known Italian auteur Alberto Lattuada, Come Have Coffee with Us is a distinctly Mediterranean take on what in any other hands would be a sex farce. Fastidious, handsome war veteran Emerenziano Paronzini (Ugo Tognazzi, La Cage aux Folles) relocates to a small Lombardy town and sets his sights on the wealthy Tarsilla sisters, whose father and benefactor has recently died. Though not as "ugly" as the subtitles would have us believe, the sisters are certainly not conventionally beautiful, and certainly not young. The oldest is a stuffy, middle-aged virgin. The middle one is a childlike harpist, given to shrieks and giggles. And the youngest is a giantess and librarian, who is also being pursued by a young, poor Romeo for trysts at the local church.
That these three repressed women quickly fall for the older man is predictable in that movie-logic sort of way, but the real strength of the film is how Lattuada never lets us quite enjoy it. Half the joy of a farce is the knowing sense that we're watching buffoons and jesters, winking at us through their cheesy lines. The farce makes us feel better about ourselves: for all our faults, at least we're not that stupid. Here, though, the characters are not stupid. Silly, yes, but not quite stupid. This is especially true of Paronzini. In a late speech about his war days, he lets the facade of a dandy fall for just a second, and we see a man driven by anger, desire, wasted youth. A man who wants his cake and wants to eat it too. We know he's a hypocrite, that desire for him is shorthand for victory, for control, and in a way we can't quite hate him for it. Yet he's slightly too cruel to laugh at.
The film bears superficial similarities to the 1987 Jack Nicholson movie The Witches of Eastwick, where instead of an aging dandy, it's the devil himself come to court three spinsterly women. The difference is of course that the women in Witches are Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeifer, and Cher, whom no one would ever mistake for "ugly." Hollywood can't quite handle distinctive-looking women (and their idea of "unattractive" is taking a model and giving her glasses), at least not to the extent that Italian cinema does. Women are still objects for Lattuada (and Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini, etc). But at least they're unique ones.
Paronzini's fate is, of course, getting everything he wants and not being able to enjoy a bit of it, which is funny but painful. Funnily painful. And this is what Lattuada brings to the genre of comedy: the uncomfortableness of vicariousness. In a way, Lattuada is showing us ultimate impotence of the male gaze.
DVD Bonus Features
Like the other DVDs in the Lattuada series, this contains a 15-page booklet retrospective of the director's work, which is interesting, if a little dense and one-sided. There is also a short interview with film historian Adriano Apra.
"Come Have Coffee with Us" is on sale December 6, 2011 and is not rated. Comedy, Foreign. Directed by Alberto Lattuada. Written by Adriano Baracco, Piero Chiara, Tullio Kezich, Alberto Lattuada. Starring Ugo Tognazzi, Francesca Romana Coluzzi, Angela Goodwin, Milena Vukotic, Valentine, Jean Jacques Fourgeaud.
