There's an old guy in my family. He's down on his luck. If you try to help him, he uses it as a quick fix and soon goes back to his old ways. He's cantankerous, self-obsessed, contrary. He can light up your day with moments of genuine kindness and cutting humour. People he used to work with would come by now and again when he retired, but gradually they drifted away, leaving him all alone. The people he comes into day-to-day contact with tend to treat him condescendingly, thinly disguising their view of him as a pest.
Every family has one such character. There is no magical solution. You can feel sorry for the guy without really liking him.
Umberto D isn't a likable character, but he is all too human. The small journey from down-at-heel to suicidal is carefully drawn in this quiet, subtle, thought-provoking film. The dog begging, the train speeding past in a whirl of dust and noise, the stranger lying to get away from Umberto's whining; these are small moments of crushing defeat for the human spirit that are finely pitched in this well-crafted film. The film may not be timeless, the score is overly-sentimental and there are jarring jump-cuts. However, the message is universal - Umberto D is an antidote to the white plight movies turned out by cookie cutters in Hollywood about rich misanthropic lawyers who have to take on bad guys. Poverty, isolation, loneliness, and a kind of redemption at the end - unfortunately, they don't make movies like this anymore.
Every family has one such character. There is no magical solution. You can feel sorry for the guy without really liking him.
Umberto D isn't a likable character, but he is all too human. The small journey from down-at-heel to suicidal is carefully drawn in this quiet, subtle, thought-provoking film. The dog begging, the train speeding past in a whirl of dust and noise, the stranger lying to get away from Umberto's whining; these are small moments of crushing defeat for the human spirit that are finely pitched in this well-crafted film. The film may not be timeless, the score is overly-sentimental and there are jarring jump-cuts. However, the message is universal - Umberto D is an antidote to the white plight movies turned out by cookie cutters in Hollywood about rich misanthropic lawyers who have to take on bad guys. Poverty, isolation, loneliness, and a kind of redemption at the end - unfortunately, they don't make movies like this anymore.