Richie Rich as continuation of neorealist cinema

No neorealist films can show all of their characteristics more so than 'Richie Rich'. One of the very definitions of neorealism is that it is a strategy of suggesting what lies beneath the surface, or what has not been captured by the camera. Donald Petrie as a neorealist director was not concerned with '90s high society, but suggests that the physical events of the movie have some deeper significance.

Petrie in 1987 expressed his fondness for the films of Jean Renoir, an artist who recognised that reality could only be captured in one way - through an artifice. Thus the tragicomic end of 'Richie Rich', when Richie is driven to steal a bicycle. By introducing this ethical element, he incorporates a point of view on the human condition without extrovert on-screen representation.

Bazin's theories on 'Richie Rich' are interesting in so much as he admires the film for its careful construction. This defies the conventions of traditional criticism on the neorealist genre. Perhaps this suggests to us that deep-focus compostion and lateral reframings used by Petrie mimic the journey of a person (Richie) through the world, and mirror their ascent of the moral staircase.

Certainly for American audiences, the subject matter of 'Richie Rich' appeared shocking and new, and the lack of spectacle made it strange and unfamiliar. Richie's zestful rejection of the patriarchally dominated 'mansion' in the third act of the film represented a subjective perception of the 'third meaning' of bourgeois male protagonist.

Culkin's performance as the film ends portrays a middle-class attitude to social planning, the breakdown of any sense of community or ethics, and his restrictions of opportunities of the American underclass.

In contrast, his initial meeting with the idealist tomboy and her friends contrasts to their later mis-recognition of each other when he has become world weary and she an 'urban cancer' on the superior realm of the Rich family.

In so many words, 'Richie Rich' represents a very real return to the neorealist fables of the Italian postwar cinema.



'Happiness is telling a truth that hurts no-one.'