The or A

I was born in 61 and I'm insanely attracted by movies of the mid 70s, my first emotions.
Lately I found this, that my mother repeatedly called one of her favorites.
She liked Losey in general.
Given the title, and my mother, I was expecting a cheesy romantic movie, also because in Italian the title was A romantic...
So I was surprised to see the mother of young children escaping with a drug dealer, Helmut Berger Is also very difficult to digest.
So it's the title sarcastic? Berger calls one of his prey The romantic English woman.