Only Italians could get so worked up about industrial relations. Only this country could turn a film about unfair wages and inadequate tea breaks into a borderline-melodrama fuelled by a highly emotive, orchestral soundtrack. Her Whole Life Ahead is this film, but it is surprisingly enjoyable ride. Isabella Ragonese plays Marta, an intelligent philosophy graduate, who presents an outstanding thesis only to discover that her obscure specialisation and brilliant mind render her practically unemployable. Reluctant to enter the low-paying world of academia, she eventually settles for part-time work at a call centre specialising in the pyramid-scheme-esque, "multilevel" sale of a useless electrical appliance. As she rises slowly up the call centre ladder, however, Marta quickly discovers that her workplace is a veritable microcosm of all imaginable conflicts, where public humiliation and explosive personal break-downs are commonplace. That is, until Marta's 'knight in the shining armour' steps onto the scene, in the form of a disgruntled union official. There's no doubt about it; this film is nuts. In between Marta's troubled homelife as a live-in-babysitter, a couple of broken hearts, and an unexpected car accident, this story threatens to spiral out of control on several occasions. Director Paolo Virzi always manages to reel it in at just the right moment, though, delivering zany humour without totally compromising the story. It's not particularly moving filmmaking, but it's certainly engaging, and for young graduates struggling to find gratifying work there's a lot of relatable content here.
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