Never on Sunday (1960)
★★★½ — Never on Sunday (1960)
There's a moment watching Never on Sunday where you just sort of melt into it. The sun is blazing, the bouzouki music is rattling around in your head, and Melina Mercouri is lighting up the screen with this enormous, irresistible energy, and you think: right, I'm going to enjoy myself here. Sixty-five years old and this film still has that effect. That's not nothing.
I picked this up as part of my A-Z World Movie Tour, Greece being the stop in question, and I genuinely wasn't sure what to expect. What I got was something full of warmth, wit, and a surprisingly sharp little argument buried underneath all the Mediterranean sunshine and good humour.
The setup is a fairly simple clash of worldviews. Homer is an idealistic American who arrives in Piraeus convinced that the ancient Greeks were the pinnacle of human civilisation, only to find himself utterly baffled by Iliad, a free-spirited woman who works as a prostitute, loves life loudly and without apology, and has absolutely no interest in being saved by anyone. Homer, being the sort of well-meaning but insufferably certain man that he is, decides she needs rescuing and sets about trying to educate and reform her. Iliad, for her part, is having absolutely none of it, while still being generous enough to want to help Homer find some joy of his own.
And here's where the film does something interesting. On the surface it looks like a fairly breezy comedy, and it is, genuinely funny in places. But there's a real duality running through it. Homer represents this paternalistic, moralising attitude that simply cannot accept a woman being content on her own terms. Iliad, meanwhile, is someone who has built her life around pleasure, connection and happiness, and she doesn't need anyone's permission for that. The film, to its credit, sides with her. Homer is the one who needs to change, not Iliad.
Now, I'll be honest: the message is a little dated in places. Some of the framing around Iliad's situation hasn't aged in a perfectly clean way, and there are beats that a modern audience might shuffle a bit uncomfortably at. But it's sixty-five years old. You have to meet it where it is, and where it is, for 1960, is genuinely progressive in its sympathies. Iliad is never a figure of tragedy or pity. She's the most alive person in any room she walks into.
Mercouri is the reason the whole thing works. Her performance is magnetic, genuinely impressive, the kind of acting that doesn't feel like acting at all. She plays Iliad with this wonderful physicality and warmth, and you just follow her through every scene completely willingly. The supporting characters are varied and fun as well, a colourful crowd of regulars and locals who give the whole film a real sense of place and community.
And then there's the music. The title song alone is worth the price of admission. It lodges in your brain immediately and stays there, which feels entirely appropriate for a film so insistent on pleasure and good feeling. I found myself thinking it paired nicely in mood with Daisies (1966), another film from that era built around women refusing to play by the rules men have set for them, though the two couldn't be more different in style.
If you're new to older European cinema, this is actually a lovely way in. It doesn't demand anything heavy from you. It just asks that you sit back, let Mercouri do her thing, and enjoy a story about a woman who knew exactly who she was and didn't see why that should be anyone else's problem. Three and a half stars.
Would recommend, particularly if you're in the mood for something with a bit of sunshine in it.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 1960 | Watched: 2025-06-26
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: ScreenPix Apple TV channel · ScreenPix Amazon Channel
Physical: Amazon US
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Greece: Triangle of Sadness (2022) · Semele (2015)
More from the 1960s: Viy (1967) · Persona (1966) · Carnival of Souls (1962) · Daisies (1966)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
More romance: The Eagle (1925) · The Last Picture Show (1971) · The General (1926) · The Docks of New York (1928)
