One of Monica Vitti's first comic vehicles was this proto-feminist comedy about a traditional Sicilian woman who reaches England and emancipation while searching for the man who done her wrong. Vitti's mocking humor is perfect for a double-sided role, as an ardent Sicilian wife whose husband can't take the heat, and then as the cool Londoner who seduces and abandons this same husband. In the tradition of Monicelli's Big Deal on Madonna Street, this film cleverly satirizes Italian mores while it also examines, as many films of the sixties did, Italy's relationship to other countries, and the concomitant preoccupation with provincialism vs. cosmopolitanism.