If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I have always had ambivalent feelings towards Pasolini. On the one hand, I like twisted plots, thrill, unpredictable moments, versatile characters and the like, but he is too dallying, has many references to "old" issues and depicts awkward things artificially created, i.e. not based on true events or so. Mamma Roma has its moments, but, in general, it is not catchy, the past within is too schematic, and all male performances are mediocre; black-and-white did not let enjoying of landscapes and town milieu in full either. True, Anna Magnani as the leading actress is good, her voice and facial expressions included, but all in all, the film was just a sophisticated cinematography and a reasoning story about a former prostitute's challenges and opportunities.

I think that, along with "Accattone" and "The Gospel According to St. Matthew", "Mamma Roma" is one of the best films directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, being one of his most moving works.The way in which this film portrays a hard and dramatic reality is remarkable in every possible way, making the story and the characters from the movie something very close to the viewer, having at the same a very poetical quality in each scene.I think that is shame that Pasolini is mostly remembered by the dull "Trilogy of Life" movies and "Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, 1975)" when he made such memorable and beautiful films like this one."Mamma Roma" is a heartbreaking (but also very inspiring and wonderfully made) film which I recommend to any viewer.

If Sarah Palin wants to support what she calls her "Mama Grizzlies," she should have Mamma Roma in her stable. This woman (Anna Magnani - The Rose Tattoo, The Secret of Santa Vittoria) is one tough grizzly, especially when it comes to her son, and trying to keep him on the straight and narrow.She used to be a woman of the evening, until her pimp (Franco Citti - Accattone!, Godfather III) marries a country girl and retires, letting her reclaim her now teenage son (Ettore Garofolo in his first film) and move to Rome.He soon falls for a loose woman and in with some unsavory characters. That's when the grizzly rears on her hind legs and goes to work.Director Pier Paolo Pasolini (The Gospel According to St. Matthew, The Decameron, and the last before he was murdered, Salò) used Citti in many of his films. His films, while critically acclaimed, could draw moral outrage. Five minutes were cut from this film by the Italian authorities; although I can only guess where. He still was one of the best, and directed a winner here.

Strong and tragic movie with an amazing Anna Magnani as the broken-down woman who fight for a dignified life in the slum of Rome. Uncompromising social realism and no one could like Pasolini use music as a consequent commentary to the themes in the film. In his movies the music is not isolated to the specific scene, but always to the film as a hole. He does this in a way so that the viewer is being compelled into the movie and becomes an "active" participant in the action. It is characteristic for Italian movies in general, but Pasolini achieved this in the most painfully and hypnotic way. Maybe with a tendency towards the rhetorical but that does not weaken the film. It is a masterpiece!