La Notte (1961)

After visiting a dying friend in the hospital, successful writer Giovanni Pontano (Marcello Mastroianni) and his wife Lidia (Jeanne Moreau) separate to spend the afternoon on their own—he back home to rest, she to walk the streets where she grew up. They regroup to attend a party at a wealthy industrialist's estate, where both engage in flirtations as they confront their dissatisfaction with their lives as they stand. Ultimately, they have to confront the realities of their marriage, their station in life, and the meaning they're not finding in all of it.

For Giovanni, success doesn't seem to bring any sort of salvation from the mundane in his life. His passion is kindled by a wild-eyed patient just a few rooms down from Tommaso's at the hospital, which he initially succumbs to only to be thwarted by attending nurses. That afternoon, he's at a cocktail party, where he brushes off fawning admiration for his craft, bouncing around with little interest in the people there, while Lidia leaves unannounced to stroll through Milan. Both are affected by seeing their friend Tommaso's terminal deterioration in the hospital, and it casts a pall over their meanderings throughout the day. Lidia encounters a street fight, which she inadvertently breaks up by pleading with the combatants, only to run away when one shows an interest in talking with her. She finally phones Giovanni, and he picks her up.

They prepare for a party that evening that they resign to attend out of boredom with another night at home. The party brings opportunities for both Giovanni and Lidia to flirt, and they are both thwarted in their attempts to do so—he by the socialite daughter of the party's host (Monica Vitti), she by her own hesitation to cheat on her marriage. As the party wears on into morning and it comes time to leave, Giovanni and Lidia are left with each other.

Michelangelo Antonioni is a master of giving actors space to inhabit, and the leads do just that beautifully in La Notte. The film is one of small moments in which even successful people have to confront the trappings of their lives. Nothing particularly dramatic or eventful happens in the film, which takes place in a day that reveals very little and a great deal about our two protagonists. Instead, the space between people—the connections not made, the isolation enhanced—binds characters to their growing sense of distance between each other. Ultimately, it comes down to a failing marriage between the leads, and the desperation that breeds within Giovanni and Lidia.