Living it Up (La Bella Vita)

Italian director Paolo Virzì made his debut with this 1994 comedy-drama, screening at Lakewood Ranch Cinemas. The plot follows a working-class couple in the Tuscan town of Piombino whose seemingly blissful marriage frays when the husband loses his steelworker job during an economic downturn. As financial pressures mount, the wife begins a forbidden affair with a local television idol, setting off a chain of emotional and medical crises. Rather than a straightforward tragedy, the film balances its neorealist working-class struggles with wry humor, earning Virzì a David di Donatello award for Best New Director. The movie captures a specific transitional moment in Italian society through the lens of a failing provincial marriage.