Intimate, sweeping, resonant.

The story line covers the decades from the 60’s to the present. It is the saga of a family, the Carati’s. They are middle class, mother is a teacher, father is an entrepreneur. The narrative more closely follows the two boys who are the middle children. Nicola’s (Luigi Lo Cascio) field is medicine. He is gentle, warm, sensitive and outgoing. Matteo (Alessio Boni) is volatile , rebellious, idealist, introverted and impulsive. He has more longings — he's a passionate reader of books — and fewer plans. Matteo, after discovering a scar from electric shock treatments, abducts and falls for a patient from a barbaric asylum, Georgia (Jasmine Trinca), a mentally unstable young woman. The failure of this mission sends the Caratis on their respective paths: Nicola is to become a psychiatrist, while Matteo - seemingly negating all he believes in - joins the army, then the police. While Nicola gives the film its spirit, Matteo is its tragic heart.

Among the supporting players are two women: Sonia Bergamasco co-stars as Giulia, who marries Nicola and becomes an assassin. Maya Sansa plays Mirella, a gorgeous Sicilian woman who loves Matteo but can't get close to him.

As the lives and trials of the Carati clan wax and wane, their struggles and joys reflect the rhythms of life on a larger social scale: the 1966 Florence floods, the student protests of 1968, the more violent labour protests in 1974, the reaction against the hideous abuse of the mentally ill, the 1980 layoffs at Fiat in Turin, Italy's 1982 World Cup championship, the terrorist activities of the Red Brigades, and the 1992 murders of anti-Mafia magistrates in Palermo share equal weight with personal history. The cinematography shifts too, from Rome to Florence, to Turin, to Palermo, to the island of Stromboli, to the trendy Tuscan countryside, with an enchanting stop in Norway. The film contemplates how people change, grow apart, come together and interact with political and social forces.

The movie does take its sweet time getting up to speed. New Year's Eve 1983 goes on forever, and you're not sure why, until, suddenly, you are. Happily, Part Two is much better, much more emotionally involving, with one sequence that literally left my jaw hanging.

The final scenes of ''The Best of Youth" suggest that if misfortune is part of our existence, so too is goodness.

The Best of Youth is no masterpiece, but it has enough truthful, moving moments to make it worthwhile.


A quote-
Sicilian Commissario: What were you looking for, joining the Police?
Matteo Carati: I wanted some rules.
Sicilian Commissario: And what do you do, with these rules?
Matteo Carati: I apply them.



ps Originally intended for television (RAI miniseries), the producers were unable to get permission to air the film because it was deemed by the authorities to be “politically incorrect”.

pps It took the writers five years to complete the 600 page script. Filming involved 240 locations and as many as 2,000 actors.