Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria, a sweetly melancholy story of a Roman prostitute, relies heavily on the talents of its lead, Giulietta Masina, as the perpetually luckless Cabiria. It’s a pretty safe bet: Masina combines comic timing with deep emotional undercurrents to make Cabiria a memorable, and enduring, character.

The plot is largely incidental, canvas to Masina’s palette of emotions. The film opens with her nearly drowning from being pushed in the river, a foreshadowing of life continually pushing her under, and of her almost Rasputin-like way of coming up not just alive, but feisty, ready to fight. She seeks love and contentment constantly, but not at the cost of the vibrant independent that at times gets her into trouble but also is what keeps her going in the darkest hours. Masina’s eyes, dark and large, can sparkle with joy and well with despair, sometimes at the same moment, and Fellini finds settings that are, like Cabiria herself, raw but with a sort of rough beauty. It all depends on how you look at it.

In the pre-Pretty Woman (which appears to owe a great deal to Cabiria’s evening with the self-involved movie star) days of this film there are no fairy tale endings for a woman like Cabiria: she’s a loser, and likely to remain one. But she’s a loser worth rooting for, one who remains vibrant and alive even in the face of total hopelessness. If she can smile in her circumstances, the least we can do is smile with her.