Italian director Paolo Virzì's "Il capitale umano (Human Capital)" is a skillfully structured whodunit with social relevance as well as a keenly observed character study brought to life by a terrific ensemble cast.
Told in chapters and from multiple perspectives, the story traces a group of people from diverse backgrounds leading up to and following a fateful evening with deadly consequences. Besides a couple of extended, markedly fluid tracking shots, the direction is relatively free of bells and whistles, opting instead for a deliberate, evenly considered approach. Aided further by some superior editing work that cuts, inserts and revisits scenes without losing the overview or seeming redundant, the result is not just narratively clear, but tightly woven and briskly paced. The acting is also strong, in part thanks to the luminous Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, who's in top form here, playing a failed actress suffocated by a marriage into the über-rich and seduced by the dirty scent of freedom. Physically and vocally exact, her performance gets the boredom, frustration and thirst of someone constantly underestimated just right, making the character vulnerable but also dangerously unpredictable.
In the end the puzzle turns out to be a bit too simplistically constructed and the resolution disappointingly straightforward, so the movie doesn't wrap on a high note, but otherwise it's 110 engrossing, technically polished minutes that keep you teased, absorbed, comfortably entertained.
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