Il capitale umano (Paolo Virzì, 2013)

Of course the technique of telling a film from three different perspectives is so common it's now quite standard, but that doesn't diminish its value provided that it's done to serve the drive of the narrative rather than just for modish effect. Human Capital uses it in the right way, unpeeling the events of one night like the layers of an onion. The basic story revolves around three families in Lombardy; one ultra-rich (a callous banker, his disempowered trophy wife and his spoilt son), one a level below (a hapless estate agent gambling on the markets, his blissfully unaware wife and his independent-minded daughter) and one at the bottom of the social scale (a sensitive boy shunned for his unconventionality and his wastrel of an uncle). Their lives intersect around the accidental running over of a cyclist and there's a good deal of fairly restrained social observation along the way about the nature of a money and status-driven society, helped considerably by the transposition of the story to Northern Italy (the source novel was actually set in Connecticut). It does veer somewhat perilously close to soap opera at some points, and in the end doesn't actually leave us with much substance, but it's a handsomely mounted piece all the same.

6/10