Synopsis
A Difficult Life (Una vita difficile, 1961) is Dino Risi's tragicomedy, free to watch online on iFILM. Alberto Sordi plays Silvio Magnozzi, a journalist whose stubborn ideals keep colliding with the Italy rebuilding itself around him.
It opens in 1944, in the mountains, where Silvio fights alongside the partisans and meets Elena (Lea Massari). What follows is two decades compressed into one man's losing streak: furious newspaper columns, a prison term, a comfortable job he turns down on principle, and a marriage worn thin by his refusal to bend.
Risi tracks a whole nation — from rubble to boom years — through a single unbowed loser, and the laughs come braided with real bitterness. The famous slap near the end says more than any speech could. Sordi keeps Silvio right on the line between exasperating and heartbreaking. Stream A Difficult Life (1961) online on iFILM.
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