Pros: Sophia Loren is great as Cesira, an Italian shopkeeper, widowed in the middle of World War II. However, while she delivers the performance of a lifetime (winning an Oscar), her character makes dubious decisions, including leaving the bombed out Rome and sleeping with a married man. Eleanora Brown as her daughter Rosetta is also great. The setting, lightning, cinematography and score are also great and painfully realistic.
Cons: The plot. Yeah, I had huge issues with it as Cesira first is desperate to flee Rome and then she gets to the hamlet where food is scarce and wants to head back to Rome and the timeless, as apparently at least a year passed and you wouldn't have known it. And that's a shame as Loren's superb performance was utterly wasted in this film, which is nothing more than mediocre at best.
Recommend: No
Grade: B-
Side Notes:
-Of note, the f word appears in a subtitle and a woman offers to feed them breast milk as her baby was killed by the Germans. The rape scene is relatively realistic, painful to watch but there isn't any blood shown afterwards.
-Mussolini is mentioned several times. His son would soon marry Sophia's younger sister.
-Jean-Paul Belmondo is cast as the male lead, an educated man living in the small village. His character feels oddly out of place and as the actor is French, he is also miscast. Still, he does the best he can with his role.
-The ending is awful. I'm not upset that it was a sad ending, it's just that they were trying to get back to Rome, endured plenty of tragedy, but ends with them in a random village, in a stranger's house, holding each other, without any finality. But yes, there is growth of Cesira's end. She does finally admit that she can't always be strong.
-Despite Loren's great performance, Natalie Wood was better in Splendor in the Grass.
-This film pales in comparison to Vittorio De Sica's masterpiece Bicycle Thieves, though he directed this one also. See that one instead.
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