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Under its comedic and lighthearted exterior, Vittorio De Sica’s Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963) calls out several social issues and absurdities of its time. The film, a collection of three comical vignettes chiefly showcasing the power females wield over men, examines concepts like love, class, materialism, the judicial system, religion, and working class camaraderie.

The film stars Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni in the lead roles of each segment. The film’s first segment, “Adelina,” is a commentary on the absurdity of the judicial system. A legal loophole prevents pregnant women from being arrested, instead waiting until 6 months after they give birth. At that time they must serve their sentence, although they’re permitted to take their children to prison with them. The prisons in the film are filled with women jailed for menial offenses, crowding the place with children being raised behind bars as a result.

What “Adelina” does capture is the respectable Italian community spirit. Everyone in Adelina’s neighborhood rallies to collect funds for her release, taxing everything from haircuts to fruit in order to raise enough coin. Even the police chip in, completely willing to contribute to the cause, furthering the idea that the imprisonment is ridiculous in the first place. Everyone in the village is obviously poor, living in clay-bottomed one-room apartments filled with children, yet they contribute what they can to get her released. It’s a short film deeply rooted in the sentiments of community and society, highlight the outrageousness of broken systems that surround us.

The second segment, “Anna,” is a deep contrast to the first. Loren’s title character is filthy rich, selfish, and found driving a Rolls Royce to pick up her new beau Renzo (Mastroianni). It’s a fairly shapeless segment that potentially offers a dig at female drivers—Anna is constantly rear-ending the cars in front of her every time she stops, yet when Renzo eventually takes the wheel, he crashes it, and she lashes out at him for not understanding how to drive such a fancy car. Of course, the fact that he crashed after swerving to avoid running over a child isn’t a consideration Anna makes; this idiot wrecked her Rolls, and now she is disinterested in his company. For the ten minutes prior, she spoke of her disgust with money and her bourgeois way of life, promising to escape with Renzo to a simpler and passionate existence, but she reveals her true colors when the Rolls gets dented.

The segment utilizes a limited narrative trope that expires quickly, which befits its short running time. The character of Anna never receives any type of comeuppance. After the crash, she simply ditches Renzo on the side of the road and drives off with the next bourgeois man who comes to her rescue. The disgusting nature of her behavior is a thematic nod to how rich people seem to get away with everything and use people for their benefit, discarding them when they’re no longer helpful. She is an empty and emotionless character who chooses material gain over passion every time, afraid that if she lets go of the things that define her as high society, she’ll have nothing left.

The film’s third part, “Mara,” is the most famous and highly regarded of the film’s sequences. The story of a Roman courtesan who nearly convinces seminary student Umberto (Gianni Ridolfi) to abandon his vocation while simultaneously driving sex-starved businessman Augusto (Mastroianni) crazy, it’s a humble look at a woman with a not-so-humble profession. It’s a societal film above all, wherein a young beauty finds common ground with an old, set-in-her-ways grandmother, and both find solace through compassion and understanding.

Sex is the tool that initiates everything with Mara, from Augusto and Umberto’s obsession with her to Umberto’s grandmother’s initial disdain. But on a larger level, the segment pits religion and sex against each other, highlighting the problem of Catholic guilt through Umberto. Mara triggers in him a demand for his basic natural desires—something his future profession will condemn—and it forces him to debate the path. Alhough Mara is a prostitute, she’s a pious one, and her responsibility for his change of heart doesn’t sit well with her. Through some wonderful and dramatic conversations overlaid with scenes of Mastroianni hilariously behaving like a buffoonish idiot, a balance is found. Mara is uninhibited and proud yet decent and sensual—a symbol of the modern woman carving out her role in a progressive society.

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow is an iconic and humorous film, and one that speaks to society and culture on many levels. While it lives on in cinematic history for some visually superficial reasons (ahem, striptease), it is also a cleverly-constructed and wonderfully performed piece with subtexts that speak to every class level of society in its time.