The Manual of Love

Love in four chapters, as if it came with an instruction book. Falling in love: a young man, out of work, chases a woman he has just met across Rome with comic determination. Crisis: a married couple who have stopped seeing each other. Betrayal: a traffic cop discovers her husband is cheating and takes her fury out on everyone in the city. Abandonment: a doctor left by his wife falls apart in ways that are funny and painful at the same time. The stories cross lightly, like people passing on the same street.

Giovanni Veronesi assembled a great cast for a light commedia all'italiana: Silvio Muccino and Jasmine Trinca, Sergio Rubini and Margherita Buy, Luciana Littizzetto, and Carlo Verdone, who steals the film as the abandoned husband. The tone is warm and gently satirical, with each chapter a little sadder than the one before. It was a huge hit in Italy and spawned several sequels.

It is not deep, and it doesn't try to be. But it is very well made comedy about the stages every relationship goes through, and some of the moments, Buy and Rubini's quiet crisis, Verdone's breakdown, cut a little deeper than you expect. A pleasure, and a reminder of how good Italian popular cinema can be.