Lina Wertmüller’s 1978 romantic drama, Night Full of Rain, relied on spontaneity and improvisation in making it her English-language debut. When the film was released on Blu-ray at the end of December 2024, both the Blu-ray and packaging design featured the longer version of the title: The End of the World in Our Usual Bed on a Night Full of Rain. But because that title is so long, I’m just going to refer to it by the four words that are bolded in large print on the film’s American artwork. There are no bonus features.

Night Full of Rain follows Paolo (Giancarlo Giannini), a rigid Italian communist, and Lizzy (Candice Bergen), a free-spirited American photographer, as their relationship unravels during a stormy night. A Greek chorus comments on their marriage, flashing back to the couple’s first meeting in Italy a decade earlier, where political debates and romantic sparks collided in equal measure.

Their courtship is anything but smooth. In San Francisco, Paolo’s obsessive pursuit of Lizzy—even brawling with a rival suitor—sets the tone for a love defined by passion and conflict. The chorus frames their story as a kind of anti–Romeo and Juliet, suggesting that unlike Shakespeare’s doomed lovers, Paolo and Lizzy’s tragedy is in surviving, stuck in a marriage that curdles into routine. Even with a daughter, their domestic life is dominated by Paolo’s criticisms and Lizzy’s frustration at being stifled.

As the storm outside mirrors the turmoil within, arguments over feminism, fidelity, and freedom push the couple to the breaking point. Lizzy flees into the night, Paolo rescues her from danger, and the two collapse back into each other’s arms—not out of reconciliation, but out of exhaustion and desperation. Their final embrace, soaked in tears, suggests not renewal but uncertainty, as if their marriage survives only by inertia. It’s a portrait of love as struggle, caught between intimacy and ideology, tenderness and resentment.

I’m not sure if I even understood what Lina Wertmüller was trying to do with her English-language debut Night Full of Rain. What I can say with full certainty is that Candice Bergen’s casting initially piqued my interest when the film was tabbed for a Warner Archive release on Blu-ray. Hell, she’s the film’s only cast member that I was even familiar with. I had been a fan of Murphy Brown growing up but this isn’t Candice Bergen playing Murphy Brown. She’s here to portray another character that pre-dated the hit TV series by a decade.

The failure of Night Full of Rain is not Candice Bergen’s fault. Maybe it’s the fact that Italian cinema doesn’t exactly translate to American audiences or it could be the fact that we have a Greek chorus practically narrating the entire movie. I don’t know. Night Full of Rain completely struggled all the way through to keep my attention. Of course, it goes without saying that your mileage may vary. That being said, filmmaker Lina Wertmüller was critical of how Warner Bros. did not support the U.S. release. Similarly, she claimed that the studio damaged the film during the editing process.

The film did not play well with American audiences in the late 1970s, and it is still not playing well as it slowly approaches its 50th anniversary.

DIRECTOR/SCREENWRITER: Lina Wertmüller
CAST: Giancarlo Giannini, Candice Bergen, Michael Tucker, Mario Scarpetta, Lucio Amelio, Massimo Wertmuller, Anna Papa, Anne Byrne, Flora Carabella, Anita Paltrinieri, Giuliana Carnescecchi, Alice Colombo Oxman, with Jill Eikenberry, Paola Ojetti, Vicenzo Vitale, Paola Silvia Rotunno, John West Buchanan, Ileana Caravati, and Alison Tucker

Warner Bros. released Night Full of Rain in theaters on January 29, 1978. Grade: 1/5

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