Human Capital begins with a bird’s eye overview—the aftermath of a posh banquet as servers clear dirty dishes from soiled tablecloths. One waiter starts for home on his bicycle, winding through the dark, empty streets until overtaken by a speeding SUV and run off the road. The offending vehicle pauses a second before racing for the cover of night, leaving him for dead.
That fateful banquet is central to this jigsaw puzzle story, arranged in chapters told from overlapping points of view. The parts converge with more grace than usual in these Crash sort of films, courtesy of the deft editing and storytelling of Italian director Paolo Virzì. Human Capital shows how perspective defines the meanings we assign to people and actions—and those perceptions are usually cut short by blinders or lack of context. As suggested by its title, the film is also about wealth as a measure of human worth in a purely market society and its warping effect on human relations.
Chapter one of Human Capital concerns Dino, a real-estate broker desperately seeking admission to the One Percent by borrowing and stealing enough money to buy a small piece of a hedge fund. Chapter two focuses on Carla, who married into the worst of the One Percent; husband Giovanni is a predatory hedge fund manager. Chapter three is devoted to Dino’s teenage daughter Serena, who becomes an unwilling tool in dad’s dangerous game as well as an accomplice in the crash that seriously injured the waiter. Chapter four ties loose ends together.
Human Capital has no heroes. Everyone is guilty or complicit, albeit some characters are more sympathetic than others. The women come off best. Carla is naïve if opportunistic, a confused and uncertain woman chauffeured through life until forced to confront unpleasant realities. Serena seems a spoiled wanna-be rich kid, but will love turn her around? Giovanni is a master of the Euro universe, betting on failure and pushed toward ruin when success occurs instead. The glad-handing Dino is most pathetic of all. It’s hard to disagree with Giovanni’s description of him as a worm.
Although filmed in Italian with English subtitles, Human Capital could easily be transferred to Wall Street and the Hamptons without changing a single plot point.
11:45 a.m., Friday, Sept. 26, Oriental Theatre; 4:15 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 1, Fox Bay Cinema Grill; and 9:45 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 8, Times Cinema. The screenings are part of Milwaukee Film Festival’s Worldviews Series sponsored by Shepherd Express.
