Le Amiche
Le Amiche (, lit. "The girlfriends") is a 1955 Italian drama film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and starring Eleonora Rossi Drago, Gabriele Ferzetti, Franco Fabrizi, and Valentina Cortese. Based on Cesare Pavese's 1949 novella Tra donne sole (lit. "Only among women"), Le Amiche portrays a group of five upper-class women in Turin and their various relationships with men. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival where it was awarded the Silver Lion. Plot Clelia returns from Rome to her native city Turin, assigned to supervise the opening of a branch of the Roman fashion salon where she previously has been working. By coincidence, she is confronted with the suicide attempt of a young woman named Rosetta and gets acquainted with her circle of Turin socialites. The group includes Rosetta, the coquettish Mariella, Momina, who lives separated from her husband and has changing affairs, and successful ceramics artist Nene, who lives with Lorenzo, an unrecognised painter. The construction work on the salon, whose opening lies only a few days ahead, is not finished yet, for which Clelia scolds Cesare, the architect in charge, who turns out to be Momina's present affair. During her inspection, Clelia also meets Cesare's assistant Carlo. Although she feels attracted to him, she is soon confronted with the social boundaries between Carlo, who is of working class descent, and herself, regardless of the fact that Clelia grew up in one of Turin's poor quarters as well. After Rosetta's return from the hospital, the five women, Cesare and Lorenzo take a trip to the beach. It becomes evident that Rosetta has fallen in love with Nene's partner Lorenzo, for whom she modeled and whom she had tried to ring up on the night of her suicide attempt. Rosetta tells Clelia of her inner emptiness and that she loathes the predictability which surrounds her. Clelia offers Rosetta a job at the salon as a means to find a different perspective on her life. Rosetta tries to talk Lorenzo into leaving Nene for her, but Lorenzo remains hesitant. Eager to spend every moment possible with her lover, she decides against the opportunity to work at Clelia's salon. During the opening event, Nene, who has sensed the attraction between Rosetta and Lorenzo, offers Rosetta to let him go. When the group later meets in a restaurant, Cesare mocks Lorenzo for his lack of artistic success, and the two men get into a fight. Rosetta follows Lorenzo, who tells her that he cannot give her the love she seeks from him. Lorenzo returns to Nene, who eventually accepts him back, even if it means giving up the chance to go to New York for an exhibition of her work. Soon after, Rosetta drowns herself in the Po river. Disgusted by Momina's self-righteousness in the face of her friend's death, Clelia attacks her for her coldness and cynism in front of the salon customers and her employer. Convinced that she will lose her job, Clelia hints at Carlo the possibility of a relationship,