I liked a lot more than I was expecting to, and probably more than I should. I can tell it is sentimental to the extreme, but damn if it isn't effective, and damn if it isn't beautifully made and utterly compelling and damn if I didn't find myself utterly engrossed in its rather simple little melodrama. I'm almost embarrassed to like it so much, but those ninety minutes really did disappear in not time at all.

obscenely, repulsively offensive to women.

"Won't somebody think of the children?!" Awful, manipulative, sentimental crap. Watch as the bright-eyed precious little angel of a boy starts crying for the fifth or sixth time as the adults in his life disappoint him once again. I will say that the cinematography was good, even though the most interesting sequence was pretty much stolen straight from the tornado scene of The Wizard of Oz (down to the music, even).

A powerful film about the intersection of resilience and loss of innocence. Unfortunately, it can get too melodramatic through obtuse sound design and characterization. But it truly does care for its protagonists and its antagonists (despite their faults), which redeems the film's relative flaws.

A powerful film, but not quite up to the brilliance of De Sica's later work. Still, this film marks the beginning of his neorealist-type work and it is very worth watching.