I expected a routine wartime romance- a subtitled “love story”- but the film was a brutally honest “hate story.” Both love and hate cause us to look beyond ourselves and instead focus passionately and intensely on another person; the difference is that love focuses on the other person’s well-being, while hate is an obsession with bringing the person down. This film depicts a society unable to recognize the fine line between love and hate. Both the men and women are unabashedly obsessed with Malena, a virtuous young wife blessed with beauty, poise, and composure. Under the pretense of “love,” the men make Malena the star of their highly publicized fantasies, ogle at her ‘assets,’ and take any opportunity they can to have their way with her. Meanwhile, the women spend too much time “praying” in church, gossiping in the street, and bossing around their mama-boy adult sons to notice that their husbands are messing around with prostitutes. Of course, most of the aforementioned activities involve “praying” that Malena goes to h-ell, gossiping about why Malena must be a who-re because she silently suffers unwanted advances, and doing anything they can to keep their sons away from Malena. Are the men’s shameless lust and the women’s self-righteous piety driven out of love or hate? Unable to make the distinction, their intense obsession with Malena ultimately destroys her.