MOVIE · 1952

Umberto D.

Drama91 min

An elderly pensioner in postwar Rome is pushed toward the brink when a protest for higher pensions leads nowhere and his landlady demands overdue rent he cannot pay. Carlo Battisti is Umberto Domenico Ferrari, living in a boarding house with only his small dog for company; Maria Pia Casilio’s pregnant maid is one of the few people in the building who treats him with sympathy. As hunger, illness, and the threat of eviction close in, the film stays with the daily humiliations of trying to hold onto a room, a routine, and some dignity.