Le amiche (The Girlfriends in English) is a 1955 film by Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni. His first collaboration with cinematographer Gianni di Venanzo, it was adapted from a story by Cesare Pavese.
The plot revolves around several young, upper-class women living in Turin. It is set into motion when one of the heroines, Clelia, returns to the city from Rome only to land in a hotel and find on her first evening there that a woman in the adjacent room, Rosetta, has made a suicide attempt. Later a friend of Rosetta, Momina, joins her to find out why Rosetta tried to kill herself.
Tropes used:
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Played with for Lorenzo and Nene. While the husband returns to his wife even after the suicide of his lover it is still unclear whether he loves her or is afraid to lose her because of purely materialist concerns.
- Bittersweet Ending: Clelia leaves wary of the marriage with the man whom she probably loves but who is not her equal socially.
- Blatant Lies: Lorenzo saying to Rosetta that he does not need anyone. Actually he needs his wife albeit for purely egoistical reasons so this trope is zigzagged because he might be sincere about his own feelings.
- Book Ends:: In the beginning Clelia arrives to Turin from Rome, in the end she departs from Turin to Rome.
- Break the Cutie: Lorenzo does this to Rosetta.
- Broken Bird: Rosetta who tries to commit a suicide. Initially she fails, eventually she succeeds
- The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: Momina notices that Clelia, who is elegantly dressed, subverts this trope in contrast to many fashion designers.
- Deadpan Snarker: Cesare. And Momina too.
- Death of the Hypotenuse Rosetta
- Dramatic Irony: Lorenzo first forces everyone to enter the trattoria to have dinner there when other party members are hesitant intending to seek for another place. Later he has a breakdown in that venue, gets into fight with Cesare and leaves it the first.
- Driven to Suicide
- Easily Forgiven: Lorenzo by Nene.
- Foreshadowing: The hotel maid cries about Rosetta that she is dead. While it is a suicide that is soon botched later Risetta drowns herself and dies.
- Karma Houdini: Lorenzo remains unpunished.
- Interrupted Suicide: Rosetta who was at first even taken for already dead by the hotel maid. Then Clelia checked her and called an ambulance. Later Rosetta drowns herself in the river.
- It's All My Fault: Clelia recognises that she too is partly to blame for the death of Rosetta.
- Love Cannot Overcome: For Clealia and her lover.
- Love Triangle: Lorenzo the husband, Nene the wife, Rosetta the lover (to Lorenzo).
- Mood Whiplash: Clelia after the suicide of Rosetta directs the dress show in the parlous of her venue completely cheerful. Then she sees Momina and breaks down accusing both Momina and herself of death of Rosetta.
- One-Word Title
- The Reveal: Cesare kisses Momina by the window, looks out and notices a man ostensibly stalking them. Momina shuts the curtains. Then it is revealed that he actually waits for his girl who below opens the door for him
- Ridiculous Procrastinator: In the beginning Clelia arrives at the fashion studio its renovation underway three days before the deadline and finds out that nothing is ready. Of course everything is completed in these three days after the final rush.
- Sheet of Glass: Averted, nothing happens to the glass carried by two extras.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The the scene where Lorenzo confesses to Rosetta than he doesn't need anyone she runs away down the street in despair to the accompaniment of the upbeat music.
- Those Two Guys: Marietta and her boyfriend.
- Train-Station Goodbye: Subverted as when Clelia leaves on the train, her lover does not approach her. She leaves without exchanging good-bye.
- Vacation Episode: Characters make a trip on a holiday from Turin to the nearest seaside. It results in failure: the sea is stormy and cold and the heroines start to quarrel among themselves,
- Villainous Breakdown: Lorenzo in the cafe
