Two Women

When Rome starts being bombed, Cesira, a widowed shopkeeper, leaves the city with her daughter Rosetta and shelters in a village in Ciociaria. During the Allied advance in 1944 the two are assaulted by Moroccan soldiers. Rosetta's childhood ends that day. Vittorio De Sica directed, from Alberto Moravia's 1957 novel. The casting was different at first. Anna Magnani was to lead with Sophia Loren as the daughter, and George Cukor was attached to direct. When De Sica took over he moved Loren into the mother's role, believing it would show the damage war does to families more forcefully. Loren won the Best Actress Oscar for it in 1961, the first person to win for a performance in a foreign language, and the first Italian actress to win Best Actress in an Italian-language film. It grossed 7.2 million dollars in the United States and Canada. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 88 percent. It also won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actress at Cannes. Who it is for: viewers interested in postwar Italian cinema and anyone who wants to watch Loren. Who it is not for: anyone who needs to avoid the assault. The film shows it directly and everything after happens under its weight.