Miracle in Milan

Although it is questionable whether this picture has the simple, universal appeal of an old Chaplin film, for instance, or whether its meanings are as sharp as some may think, it is certainly a lively entertainment and should be a subject of discussion for months to come. Read full review

Italy’s crises of employment and housing are the subjects of its sentimental story, which is also a wildly imaginative tale brought to life with astonishing special effects and slapstick stunts. Read full review

The strangest and most delightful of the many collaborations of those joint exemplars of neo-realism, Vittorio De Sica and Cesare Zavattini: a Chaplinesque fable about a purely innocent and good young orphan who leads the inhabitants of a Roman shantytown in angelic revolt against their cruel evictors. [10 Nov 1996, p.4]

The failure of innocence here is touchingly absurd; the film is stylized poetry, and it is like nothing else that De Sica ever did.

Made the year after 'Bicycle Thieves', this is a less coherent but more exuberant film, with De Sica injecting a stiff dose of fantasy into what could have been another plangent tale of gentleman tramps and shantytown life. [07 Sep 2005]

This beautiful presentation of Vittorio De Sica’s fantastical portrait of poverty and human fortitude helps make the argument that the film is more than just a curio in neorealist history. Read full review

De Sica handles his fantastic material subtly and with simplicity, yielding an original mix of sharp satire and poetic fable that extended the limits of the neo-realist style. Read full review

Miracle in Milan, an involved and rambling screenplay, originally written by Cesare Zavattini in 1940 and later published as a novel entitled Toto the Good, contrasts sharply with the simplicity and warm humanity of [the same writer-director team's] Bicycle Thief and gives director Vittorio De Sica less opportunities to guide his thespers to those extremely human, heart-warming performances which are his speciality. Whereas Thief was aimed at the audience heart, Miracle is aimed at the brain. Read full review