skulli99 Review of A Difficult Life

A Difficult Life (1961)

life is hard !!(especially after fighting five yrs. in a war!)

[22 December 2000]

Another Alberto Sordi black comedy(similar to "il boom") with bouts of hilarity, but underlying a sad truth of postwar Italy in the 1950's.The existence of a minority of Italians unable to adapt to "bourgeois" civilian life after spending too many years soldiering during the 2nd world war.Alberto Sordi becomes an idealistic loser in an increasingly amoral,money grabbing society which Alberto Sordi tries to oppose, with honest journalism(his last permanent job). Alberto Sordi ends up losing everything,money,wife even freedom (he ends up in jail for libel).A most poignant moment of Alberto Sordi's life and Italian society in general is when Alberto Sordi returns to his wife's village in a luxurious car wearing expensive clothes..and wins back his wife .....but she soon finds out later that all these luxury goods were lent to him by his despotic boss, a rich industrialist who constantly humiliates Alberto Sordi as he works as a man servant in his villa !.(With a memorable final scene).One of Alberto's Sordi's best film(Also he says it too! ).Recently restored in Italy.A 9/10 film.