This seemingly atypical Visconti film is a satire on urban life and a mother's unrealistic ambitions for her daughter. Anna Magnani gives a bravura performance as a simple working-class woman who earns pin money as a "nurse," giving cut-price injections to local hypochondriacs. She enters her daughter in a Cinecittà talent competition which offers her a chance to fulfill her dreams through her child. Andrew Sarris writes, "The neo-realist theories of (writer) Cesare Zavattini can be detected around the edges as a horde of mothers descends upon a studio with their precious little darlings, but one needs an extraordinary degree of sociological concentration to peer around anything featuring Magnani's emotional thunderbursts. She becomes a loving lioness, and her maternal fury is a glory to behold as she comes to accept her hopelessly untalented and ungainly child, who is nonetheless beautiful in an introverted sort of way. She builds up her emotional force very slowly and solidly in a series of scenes in which the many facets of her womanly nature are brilliantly illuminated." This film masterfully evokes two distinct, contrasting worlds: the artificial, glimmering one of Cinecittà Studios, and the desperate but genuine one of tenement life. In doing so, Bellissima gives us a good glimpse of the Cinecittà Studios and includes a wonderful audition scene conducted by Alessandro Blasetti, another spotlighted director in this month-long retrospective.