La Nostra Vita is set in Rome, but a Rome far removed from the tourist traps of the Trevi fountain or Colosseum, instead the miles of dusty suburban building site evolved from the ruins of
Bicycle Thieves. Claudio, a construction worker, seizes on discovering his boss sweeping the demise of an immigrant worker at the site under the carpet to blackmail his employer into giving him a project, hoping to keep his young family's heads above water. But then personal tragedy strikes, and he's stretched to breaking point in striving to survive.
Luchetti's film is an unsteady ship: it lurches unpredictably from sentimentality and stereotyping to harsh verite from scene to scene. It ends up in credit largely due to the judicious decision to resist smoothing away the lead's less likable edges along the way: even at the end, he does not essay a rebuttal to the accusation of being obsessed with money.
5/10
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