This 1962 Italian cult film from director Dino Risi is a time capsule thatâs hard to know how to take. Itâs the classic odd-couple setup: Carefree, fast-driving, good-time-guy Bruno (Vittorio Gassman) is living the unexamined life to the hilt when he happens to meet uptight law student Roberto (Jean-Louis Trintignant). Road trip! Itâs initially charming in a dated way, but it becomes more and more clear that Bruno is a total pigâheâs especially adept with misogyny, e.g., an unwanted advance on a waitress that persists until she starts screaming and scratching his face (off-camera, sadly). Itâs a comedy of bad manners, played for laughsâor is it? Questions about the changing sexual mores of the era are raised, along with the quandary of whether itâs better to be a fun-loving monster or the polar opposite, but as for answersâŚ
Voice-overs are occasionally used for Robertoâs thoughts, while Bruno obviously has none. A few moments of achingly pure art interrupt the giddy travelogue flow, but truly, itâs like theyâre from a different film. The morality-play ending seems vastly out of place, too (though apparently it makes sense in the Commedia allâitaliana genre). But the real tragedy of Il Sorpasso is that itâs in black and whiteâas the two men barrel around Rome and the Italian countryside, every scene cries out for color, especially the beach party with everyone in their â60s swimsuits doing the twist in the sand. 
