A Fine Romance

Stars: Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music, S.O.B.), Marcello Mastroianni (Used People, Everybody's Fine, La Dolce Vita). When we were kids, how did we not recognize that Mary Poppins was insufferably bossy? Julie Andrews is a veddy, veddy British Pamela Piquet and Marcello Mastroianni is a stereotypical lusty Italian named Cesario Garibaldi in this one-note comedy. The principals are thrown together when Pamela discovers that her hubby is having an affair with Cesario's wife. Although initially the pair are intent on winning their spouses back, we know the foregone conclusion is that they'll wind up with one another. Unfortunately, the more time we spend with these characters--Cesario the drunk who paws anything in a skirt, and Pamela, who's a rigid type A+--we begin to wonder whether the spouses weren't correct in abandoning them in the first place. Too, this is one of those totally unrealistic laissez-faire romantic comedies in which everybody sleeps with everyone else and all the concerned parties just laugh and shrug it off, as opposed to the more realistic occurrence of one partner leaving indelible thumbprints on the other's trachea. A bright idea and a few okay laughs can't compensate for the absolute lack of an interesting plot and the often tiresome companionship of the main characters. Audience: Those looking for a silly, as opposed to raunchy, sex comedy.