This just has to be one of the best comedy films of this year.

It is basically a failed film because it is Wilder diluted to cater to an age which, ironically, is best equipped to appreciate the Wilder of old.

The audience is literally distanced from the action while at the same time encouraged to identify with it, which gives the whole exposition an almost diagrammatic quality.

[Director Billy] Wilder takes his time with the pacing and the result is a classic romantic comedy of the modern American world colliding with the provincial Italian way of life ...