Adua and Her Friends

The Merlin law shuts the brothel, and four of its women, Adua (Simone Signoret), Lolita (Sandra Milo), Marilina (Emmanuelle Riva) and Milly (Gina Rovere), pool what they have to open a restaurant. Antonio Pietrangeli sets the plan against the working-class Rome they already know, where Piero (Marcello Mastroianni) is among the men who still see them as they were. The film shows how hard it is to start a new life when everyone around you remembers the old one.