If cinema failed to turn out a single additional film about the woes and consternation of the idle rich, then very little will have been lost. Films about wealthy people are easy to make, in that one can fill the background with gorgeous settings, elaborate period costume, and ostentatious displays of wealth in order to hide the relative paucity of something new or interesting to say. When making films about the impoverished, however, it becomes more complicated. Poor people, unless they have turned to crime, work for a living and spend most waking hours toiling in some thankless labor before retreating to a nondescript hovel that would hardly be photogenic. Such films must be more clever, with a turn of wit to occupy the viewer; more human, with fully fleshed out characters that one cares about after the film has ended; or more real, with a visceral urgency that hits home to anyone who is a paycheck away from poverty themselves. This latter approach has yielded masterpieces essential to the history of cinema, particularly with the Italian Neorealist movement, which concerned itself with the lives of working class people and the way their grim existence forces them to make difficult moral choices.

Director Ramin Bahrani has made neorealism his raison d'être with his first two features focusing on the desperate working class. Man Push Cart was released in 2006, and showed an extraordinary talent in this Iranian-born filmmaker when it comes to portraying the American working class on the very edge of existence. With Chop Shop, Bahrani produces a lyrical work out of the punishing grind of a hustling street child. This is neorealism at its finest, and apart from the languages used, could be taking place in any big city in any country on earth. Alejandro Polanco plays the lead with a strong, naturalistic performance that attests to Bahrani’s skill with actors. He is a homeless child who hustles daily with a skill and determination that would impress a Wall Street trader. He sells candy on the subway, body shop services, pirated DVDs; mostly he sells himself, and his wares are backed by his unspoken reputation for integrity. Legal or illegal is irrelevant – this is the supply and demand economy that every libertarian dreams of, and he is in it for the duration.

He has a sister, and cares deeply about her, arranging a job and a home for her so they can work together towards something resembling stability and comfort. Alejandro has more than work in mind, however, as he voices constant distrust of her friends, and watches over her like a father figure for signs of irresponsibility. They work, and they work, and once in a while play, taking advantage of those rare quiet moments to remind them of why they keep pushing. They get ahead and stack money, and fall behind with setbacks large and small, but they never slow down for a moment.

There is considerable efficiency throughout, as the story is told with little exposition, leaving you to figure out the characters, their histories, and their thoughts by what they do and what they say. This is more nebulous than it appears as the dialogue of every character remains focused tightly on work, and where the next dollar is coming from. Anytime the main character considers something that doesn’t involve money, he is quiet, immobile, with a storm of emotions hidden from view. In one scene, he sees his sister about to blow some trucker for a few dollars, and the devastation this wreaks upon him is all the greater for occurring in silence. Perhaps he could interrupt the exchange, and moralize to his sister all day about how wrong prostitution is. This kid is pragmatic above all, however, and he knows the score. Morals don’t pay the rent, and you must sell whatever you have, as the system demands. He skips the indignant speeches and gets her a better job working in a café cart, and provides her with a tip jar, reminding her to put her tips in there. It is a big jar, which makes the urgency of his attempts to make a better life for his sister all the more affecting.

Another element of this efficiency of filmmaking is seen in the way metaphor is buried deeply in what is a deceptively simple series of scenes of people hard at work. The chop shop itself deals with stolen car parts, but in a way the society all of these characters inhabit is a human chop shop, with people selling whatever parts of their time, skills, and humanity that the buyer will take. Alejandro’s long term plan, his own café cart to sell food to the other workers in the Iron Triangle, is an especially effective symbol. After hustling stolen goods and saving the cash that his sister has been gathering from blowjobs for sweaty drivers, Alejandro buys his dream truck, which turns out to be a rotten shell. Impossible to convert to a mobile kitchen that will pass city health codes, it is sold at a substantial discount for parts. This is fitting, as most of our dreams are sold long before they approach fruition. The closing shot is simple beauty itself, as Alejandro tries to distract his sister after she is humiliated, with a flurry of pigeons that hustle like everyone else in this society. A thoughtful moment, which will be followed by a return to the grind.

Part of this neorealist approach is to avoid outright moralizing or messages of any kind, allowing the images to convey the ideas. In this way, Chop Shop excels beyond measure, as you inhabit this world from the opening shot, and you follow this kid from job to job, with not a moment wasted. The very concept of a free market economy makes a great deal of sense, as long as that concept remains on a page, safely away from the unmerciful grip of reality. Once this mechanical idea is applied to soft and vulnerable humans, those humans toughen up as much as they can, but eventually everyone is broken down into parts when there is nothing left to sell. You can hustle all you want, but if you go to jail for providing stolen parts (which are only stolen in the first place because people are eager to buy them cheaply), or get hospitalized with pneumonia, or get destroyed by a well-connected competitor, there is no way to recover fully and build a decent future. One can only get back up and start building from square one, with chance dictating fortunes every bit as much as one’s work ethic. And if you fall it does not matter, as one missing face in a sea of hustlers will not make a difference – the chop shop remains open and humming with business.