Hotel Paura on AllMovie

A run of bad luck coupled with devastating pride marks the beginning of a once-successful businessman's inexorable downward slide that lands him in the subterranean bowels of the "Hotel Paura." This downbeat drama chronicles his descent. Carlo Ruggeri had a happy marriage and a good career as an executive until the day his company merged with another and he lost his job. His wife Liliana is at first supportive, but then the lease on their apartment expires and because Carlo is unemployed, the landlord refuses to renew it. With nowhere left to go, Carlo, Liliana and their son Paolo end up in welfare housing. Carlo is deeply embarrassed and refuses to ask his friends and family for help. Any that is offered, he promptly refuses, along with a couple of jobs that he deems unsuitable. Eventually Liliana looses her patience, takes Paolo and moves in with her family. No longer eligible for the government-sponsored housing, Carlo is forced into the street where he becomes a beggar. Some small salvation comes when he hooks up with the kindly Lucia, a street dweller who takes him to an abandoned subway station they call the Hotel Paura. Surrounded by the most intense poverty he has ever known, Carlo makes some profound self-discoveries.