Written by Rodolfo Sonego, who, like the protagonist, was a partisan during the war, i.e., an antifascist resistance fighter, and directed by Dino Risi, Una vita difficile follows Silvio Magnozzi and the struggles he faces in his personal and professional life as a journalist and aspiring novelist. A movie that, at its core, could be influenced by Italian Neorealism considering the realistic depictions of the social problems in post-war Italy. Nonetheless, Risi's approach is, most of the time, humorous, never ceasing to find comedy in struggles. Alberto Sordi's sensibility combines an expertise in comedy and drama to give Silvio a mixture of idealism and cynicism in a story that takes place between the end of World War II and post-war Italy. The movie is interested in portraying the changes Italy went through and the difficulties that blossomed as a consequence. There's a dichotomy between what is happening in the life of Silvio, misadventures that render many moments humorous, and what is happening at a macro level: Italy's emergence as a republic after a referendum that put an end to fascism. Dino Risi portrays the political changes of an era not only through the eyes of our protagonist but also in an objective documentary-like fashion, taking actual footage of the events and including them in the movie, rendering his filmmaking an exercise in fictional realism.
The echoes of these changes manifest in Silvio's life. From posing ethical questions to existential ruminations. The movie raises the question of whether it is possible to live on one's own terms when they're challenged by the articulation of normative restrictions by translating Silvio's love for Elena (Lea Massari) but also for his profession as a writer and novelist into a dilemma where the options are postulated as mutually exclusive possibilities. The hegemonic desirability of what one has to do or be is never posed by the "I," but by societal norms whose authorship is never singular and cannot be pointed at. Has dignity a price? Can it be bought? Silvio's existential dilemmas, where his ethics as an idealist contest economic livability and what is deemed as "normal," will find resistance in different ways, e.g., his mother-in-law wants him to study architecture to better provide for his family. This is the reason why its humor is effective, but also the tragedy behind it. Una vita difficile exposes that we are nothing but cogs in the capitalist power structure machine incentivized to pursue superficiality and vapid consumerism. A society obsessed with material consumption.
Equally a character and historic study, Dino Risi's Una vita difficile is an entertaining commedia all'italiana that successfully achieves humor and profundity at the same time. An invitation to indulge in the charm of romance with music so beautiful as to be, once again, evidence of how important it can be in changing the feel of a movie.
