Pasquale Festa Campanile
Un povero ricco

THE REVIEW

Film from 1983 featuring Renato Pozzetto as actor and screenwriter alongside Ornella Muti. It's a love story with an over-the-top ending. The film, a delightful comedy, however, does not hide interesting themes.

The first is the psychosis of becoming poor, which will lead the billionaire Pozzetto to improvise as a homeless and penniless person, only to rediscover the values of simplicity. The second is the rediscovery of a romantic, poor, angular, secret, and desperate Milan. The third is the rediscovery of one's own means, starting from scratch and fighting for forgotten challenges like obtaining food and shelter. And yet, the rediscovery of the value of love in its pure sense to reject the "interested" and expired one.

Pozzetto is truly charming and capable, able to move with dexterity and skill in all contexts of the film, enlightening us on forgotten urban parentheses. Genius is the walk in Brera with the friend who is homeless or the meal on the roof of the Milan Cathedral. Today, it all seems so remote. This aspect makes the film appear almost melancholic, certainly romantic, but at times amusing and lighthearted.

Throughout the film, money seems to be the key to happiness, but the film's journey will lead the protagonist to detach from the sense of possession. Becoming a new man, in love, strong and able to sustain himself, fully aware of his own means, he will make thousands of banknotes rain from the sky onto the head of his beloved.