I Thought It Was Love

I Thought It Was Love (Pensavo fosse amore... invece era un calesse, 1991) is an Italian romantic comedy you can watch online on iFILM. Massimo Troisi directed it and plays the lead — Tommaso, a man who will go to extraordinary lengths to win back his ex, Cecilia, and who is very good at convincing himself that each new attempt is the one that will finally work.

Troisi had a gift for playing lovable stubbornness without making it grating. Opposite Francesca Neri, he builds a comedy that keeps shifting the ground: just as you think you know where things are going, something changes in the least expected way. No broad farce, no easy resolution.

The film was made three years before Troisi died in 1994, on the day he finished shooting The Postman. Knowing that casts a certain light on it — but it stands on its own as a warm, slightly melancholic piece about the gap between what we want love to be and what it actually does. Stream I Thought It Was Love online on iFILM.