Commedia all'italiana lives! The great run of savvy Italian dramedies of the ‘50s and ‘60s that looked askant at the problematic attitudes of the day, not in despair or contempt, but with a knowing, helpless shrug. Reviving it, singer/actress Paola Cortellesi, makes a ridiculously assured debut as co-writer/director (at 50!) with this epochal drama about a working-class family in Rome (three generations in a small street level flat) during the interregnum between WWII and the Il Boom ‘50s. With three kids, a brute of a husband, and his bedridden father, Cortellesi stars as wife & family peacekeeper, eking out a bit of extra cash with backside injections for an upperclass family and piecemeal mending for a local clothing shop after finishing wifely duties as cook, servant, nurse, bedmate, go-fer, cleaning lady, whatever her abusive husband demands. Yet, she's more life force than drudge though her two young boys ignore her; her marriagable daughter despises her for being walked over; the invalided FIL needs constant attention, and the husband blames her for his failures and infidelity. Her outlets? The neighborhood gossip queens, a true friend who sells vegetables in the street market, other women who enjoy seeing someone who’s got it worse then they do. She does find a friendly face in an American G.I., part of the occupying force who’s built up a crush on her, and in a failing auto mechanic who missed his chance thirty years back. She’s got a crush on him. But now, her daughter’s engaged to the wealthy boy whose parents own a prosperous café down the street. Or is this too a facade? And living so close to the edge, financially/emotionally, leaves little room for error. Rich human drama: wise/touching/funny, and when it’s too unbearable, given stylized treatment in song and dance as a visual coping mechanism. Stunningly advanced in conception & execution for a novice; and beautifully caught in period evocative monochrome. A one-off? Cortellesi’s made a hard act to follow.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Vittorio De Sica’s MARRIAGE ITALIAN STYLE/’64 the classic commedia all'italiana match for this. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/12/matrimonio-allitaliana-marriage-italian.html
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *This exactly the sort of quality General Audience mid-list film the major studios either won’t or can’t make anymore. Yet it was critically and commercially, the Italian film of ‘23. Hey, Hollywood: If you make it, they will come.
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