TODAY’S SCREENINGS AT AFI FESTIVAL : “LET’S HOPE IT’S A GIRL”

(Italy, 1986, 10 p.m.)

A gentle, golden-toned contemporary comedy-drama about an impressive household of women from an aristocratic family, headed by Liv Ullmann and her philandering, separated husband, Philippe Noiret, who live in and around their run-down estate in Tuscany. Nothing that Monicelli does can ever be dismissed, yet this casting (including Catherine Deneuve, Bernard Blier as Italians, with Stefania Sandrelli and others) smacks of the international package rather than the believeable family. The Italian practice of dubbed voices is more ruinous than usual since it is such well-known voices that are lost. Pleasant, withal.