Misinterpretations of the two main characters?

Several reviewers on this site appear to be seriously adrift in their readings of the two main characters.

For a start, they seem to be well fooled by Tyvian, who is neither a literary genius nor a hunk of Celtic virility. His book is a fraud, transformed by a good screenwriting team (like many other rubbishy books turned into passable films!). And he himself is a bigger fraud able, far from his native Wales, to fool the Italians for a while. Sergio, the film director, gets evidence of his impostures but this does not prevent his poor wife Francesca becoming the tragic victim of his duplicity.

It is Eve who gets the full measure of him however. She likes the challenge of alluring and overpowering a would-be lover, which is much more fun than tedious prostitution with rich old men for mere money. And her instinct for weakness in others leads her to exploit and humiliate Tyvian, because that is what he really desires. Knowing inwardly how much of a fraud he is, he wants to be tantalised, trampled on and punished.

His boasts of sexual prowess are as false as his other pretences for, if he were such an adept, Eve might enjoy his company more. How many good-looking women want to go to bed at dawn with someone singing Welsh who has been guzzling whisky all night? Setting himself up for failure, a bloody Welshman indeed!