A great movie by master of Italian cinema, Ettore Scola, the director of C'eravamo tanti amati, La cena and Le Bal. This film is a wonderful insight view of the ups and downs of a middle class family, how everybody grows, makes his own family, the good and the bad moments, crisis and celebrations. Vittorio Gassmann delights with his portrait of Carlo, a Literature professor whose life is rather plain but fulfilled with the stories of everybody else in his house, his family. Also Fanny Ardant and Stephania Sandrelli do a great job as two sisters who fall in love with the same man, and try to live with that pain inside, putting family respect before anything else.