The Darling of the Italian cinema, yet more bitterly ironic, this is a portrait of cupidity in an aspiring star, Adriana, who dies trying to penetrate the mystery of popularity and success. A wonderful performance by Stefania Sandrelli is central to the film's haunting quality, for she and director Pietrangeli succeed in creating a sympathetic and affecting character study of an essentially vapid person. In delineating Adriana's world and her pathetic grab for conflicting goals--affection and adoration--in a mosaic-like narrative structure, the film is also a devastating exposure of machismo and hollow prosperity in the swinging sixties. (There is even a touch of Monroe in her relationships with a kind but beaten-down pugilist and a writer who confuses analysis with love.) Ugo Tognazzi and Nino Manfredi are both quite fine as a one-time actor and publicity man, respectively.