Aahana Swrup
Netflix’s ‘The Children’s Train’ is an emotionally gripping Italian film that chronicles a cornerstone story about Italian Unity during the 1940s. The eight-year-old Amerigo grows up in Naples following World War II as the city suffers from poverty and hunger. However, a shining prospect comes their way once parents are offered the opportunity to send their children to Modena, where a new family would care for them for a few months. As such, despite the difficulty of saying goodbye to her son, Antonietta puts Amerigo on the Trains of Happiness to lead him to a brighter future.
Thus, Amerigo comes under Derna and her family’s care, unearthing a new outlook on life. Eventually, as the time nears for him to leave the North and return home to Naples, he faces an impossible choice. The adventure Amerigo undertakes may come across as understated, but it defines the trajectory of his life in nuanced, subtle ways! SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Children’s Train Plot Synopsis
When World War II ended, the bombings in Naples also came to a conclusion. Nonetheless, it doesn’t end the poverty plaguing many Southern Italian cities. As a result, Antonietta — a struggling single mother, contemplates enrolling her son, Amerigo, in the Communist Party’s Trains of Happiness initiative. However, many of her neighbors believe the communists up North want to exploit their children — or worse, eat them alive. Nonetheless, she — and many other parents like her — acknowledge that their kids can find a better future away from their dilapidating hometowns. Therefore, Amerigo and many of his peers ultimately board the train out of Naples when the time comes.
On the train, the kids are given warm clothes, and many throw their coats out to their families on the platform, knowing they need them more. The journey lasts overnight before finally arriving in Northern Itay’s Modena. Upon arrival, the kids are initially skeptical of the food in the mess because they aren’t familiar with many of the rich flavors available. Nonetheless, their weariness soon sheds. Afterward, Amerigo watches everyone get adopted out of the office one after the other, each taken by a couple or a family. When he’s left alone, one of the party members, Derna Benvenuti, who has no intentions of adopting a kid, reluctantly agrees to take him with her.
Derna is a kind woman with a room, good food, and hand-me-down clothes for Amerigo. Yet, she doesn’t believe she has a natural parental instinct. The boy grew up with a mother who struggled to show affection, making him fit perfectly by his new guardian’s side. Likewise, when he meets her extended family — Brother Alcide and nephews Revu, Lution, and Nary — he successfully bonds with them over time. The former, a carpenter by trade, even gives him violin lessons once the kid showcases a penchant for the art form. He also gets to attend school — an amenity previously withheld from him due to his family’s situation. Although he has a tough time fitting in at first, he learns to navigate his new life as time passes.
Amerigo and Derna’s parent-kid relationship improves, and the two become closer. In almost no time, he becomes a constant presence in the Benvenuti family. However, all too soon, winter passes, and the crops turn yellow, signaling the time for Amerigo and other kids to return to their homes. Derna packs the boy’s suitcases with food and clothes — and the violin Alcide gifted him on his birthday. It is a bitter goodbye, but they promise to meet again in the future and exchange letters. Yet, once Amerigo returns home to Antonietta, no letters arrive addressed to his name. Worse yet, his mother’s pessimistic ways appear to be a shock after his time in the North.
Antonietta expects Amerigo to forget his time with the Benvenutis, including his education and musical dreams. Instead, she wants her son to learn a trade to keep the family afloat. Months pass before the kid visits the Communist Party office himself, only for him to realize that Derna has been sending him letters and packages all this time. Consequently, he discovers his mother has lied to him for a while to keep him from his newfound Northern family.
The Children’s Train Ending: Why Does Amerigo’s Mother Lie About Derna’s Letters?
Amerigo’s homecoming is bound to be a sad affair. The months the kid spends in Modena with Derna introduce him to a world of new possibilities. From educational opportunities to discovering his passion for music, he realizes his future holds much more potential than he had imagined. Nonetheless, while parting ways with the Benvenutis is difficult, Amerigo’s reunion with his mother is even more challenging. From the get-go, Antonietta seems almost cold towards and detached from her son’s experiences in the Northern city. She turns away when he attempts to share Derna’s packed food and forbids him from pursuing his musical dreams. In fact, she takes Amerigo’s violin from him and stows it away under the single bed in their run-down apartment.
Afterward, Antonietta pushes Amerigo toward learning the cobbling trade so that he can start earning wages and bring money back home. Initially, the kid gets angry with his mother for treating him poorly. However, the neighboring older woman attempts to make him understand that his mother never learned how to show affection because she never received it as a child. Still, Amerigo can’t help but feel stifled under her perpetual pessimism. His situation is worsened by Derna and her family’s continued ignorance of his well-being. While the other Trains of Happiness kids receive gifts and letters from their Northern families, Amerigo remains devoid of any such gestures. For the same reason, he believes Derna has already forgotten all about him.
Nonetheless, things eventually come to a halt. Even though Amerigo stays away from music for months, the starving artist inside him compels him to seek it out months later. However, to his surprise and horror, his violin seems to be missing from the apartment. This compels the kid to seek out the Community party member who facilitated his journey to Modena. Consequently, he realizes that the offices have dozens of letters that the Benvenutis sent him. However, after the office contacted Antonietta about them, she chose to keep them a secret from her son.
Antonietta has likely felt insecure about her place in Amerigo’s life following his return from the North. She knows she cannot give the boy any opportunities he would have had with Derna and the others. The mother wants to brush the entire ordeal under the rug in an attempt to return back to their old lives. For the same reason, she lies to Amerigo about the letters. In the wake of the death of her other son, Luigi, and her husband’s abandonment, Amerigo is the only loved one she has left. Therefore, she fears losing him to another family who can give him a better life. Thus, she concludes the only way to prevent this from happening is to cut his ties with Derna.
Does Amerigo Return to Derna?
Antonietta’s actions stem from her own adverse situation, past experiences, and insecurities. Nonetheless, they don’t hurt Amerigo any less for it. The boy’s life has been overturned multiple times in the past few months. Yet, he always relies on his mother’s love. Even while in Modena, he holds on to the single apple his mother has given him at the train station as an eternal source of comfort. Therefore, he’s hurt and confused when his mother mistreats him upon his return. Antonietta loves her son, but the months they spend apart have created a wedge between them. She misses out on some instrumental parts of his developmental years and refuses to catch up. She wants to force Amerigo back into his past self, no matter the hurt this sentiment causes him.
Ultimately, the last straw arrives when Antonietta admits that she pawned off Amerigo’s violin for money. The action is an insurmountable betrayal to the kid, who finds it difficult to forgive his mother for lying about Derna’s letters. By lying to him and going behind his back, Antonietta breaks Amerigo’s trust in ways that can’t be repaired. She takes it one step further by slapping the kid when he accuses her of being a liar. Previously, Amerigo had told Derna he would never take a slap lying down — and he refuses to do it this time as well.
While Antonietta is asleep the following night, Amerigo puts on his clothes and shoes and leaves his old life behind. The next morning, he boards a train to Modena and locates Derna’s house through the return address on her letters. Derna — who hasn’t heard from the kid in months, is surprised to see him but welcomes him with open arms. Even though she hasn’t considered herself a motherly figure in the past, Amerigo’s presence in her life bestows a new sense of self upon her. Consequently, the boy abandons his life in Naples and adopts a new one with the Benvenutis, where he can pursue his real dreams. Eventually, as the years pass, he becomes a celebrated violinist, performing concerts for halls full of his fans.
Does Antonietta Sell Amerigo’s Violin?
After Amerigo leaves Naples, he concludes a particular chapter of his life. This becomes evident on his train ride to Modena, wherein he tells a fellow traveler that his mother has died and he is now going to live with his Aunt. The decision to leave his childhood home is a big one — especially for someone as young as Amerigo. For the same reason, he has to compartmentalize his hurt to deal with it without succumbing to it. However, while this helps him well into adulthood, the past comes back, knocking on his door soon. In 1994, when Amerigo is a successful violinist in his 50s, he gets a call about the death of Antonietta.
Even though Amerigo goes through with his concert in the wake of this news, Antonietta’s memory becomes stuck in his head from then on. As a result, he has no choice but to return to Naples, take care of his mother’s affairs, and find some sort of closure for himself. Consequently, he finds his old violin case shoved underneath his mother’s bed. As it turns out, in the years since Amerigo left, his mother repaid the debt on the violin so that it could one day be reunited with its owner. Furthermore, she has left a letter in the case.
In the letter, Antonietta tells Amerigo that she knew he had run away to Modena that fateful day. After his arrival, Derna wrote to Antonietta to inform her of her kid’s whereabouts. In turn, the mother told the other woman to keep Amerigo if she wanted him. Antonietta could’ve tried to get her son back but chose not to, as she respected his decision. The letter clarifies that she knew Amerigo preferred a life away from her hurt and that she couldn’t give him an ideal life. Thus, despite all the hurt it caused her, it is evident that Amerigo’s mother loved him enough to let him go.
Read More: The Children’s Train: Is it a True Story? Is Amerigo Benvenuti a Real Violinist?
