"The Scarlet Lady" is a film that steers the viewer into every territory, from fanciful comedy to some silly animation sequences to very serious drama. The beautiful Monica Vitti is well cast as an outrageously rich woman who loses her fortune to her snake-in-the-grass boyfriend, who tells her in bed that he has stolen her blind. After the initial shock, Ms. Vitti decides to kill both herself and her now ex-boyfriend, but before doing so she gives herself a week to live it up, so she sells all of her jewels, checks into a reasonably swank hotel, though probably below her usual standards, and parades around Paris in some very eye-catching outfits. She manages to catch the eye of Maurice Ronet and buys him lunch, then leaves the restaurant without saying goodbye, causing him to go through a series of both funny and sad adventures in his efforts to find her. Meanwhile, Ms. Vitti also has experiences that are quite fun, such as pretending to be a reporter and becoming a groupie of a famous rock band, and she has some terribly sobering experiences, such as saving the life of an elderly man who is attempting suicide, only to have him curse her for being a rich lady who has everything while he has nothing. Meanwhile Ronet races against the clock to save Vitti from killing herself. Will he succeed? <br /><br />Of course I will never give the ending away, but needless to say this is a very well-made film that is often more serious than meets the eye. The entire cast is outstanding and the chemistry between Ronet and Vitti is there and is very obvious. These are two people the viewer ends up caring about, despite the fact that most viewers will never encounter such fanciful folks in real life, and a lot of this film is way-above-the-clouds in terms of reality, but enough of it is grounded to the point that it is a credible, satisfying film experience. Again, it is hard to categorize this as comedy or drama because both genres are both successfully represented herein.