Got a spare six hours? Well, it would be a shame if you didn't, because this sweeping Italian drama is worth every minute.
The Best of Youth (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:60
Fresh:57
Rotten:3
Average Rating:8.3/10
Consensus: Earns its 6 hours running time by telling an engrossing story with compelling characters.
Runtime: 6 hrs 40 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
US Box Office: $0
Synopsis: Spanning four decades, from the chaotic 1960s to the present, director Marco Tullio Giordana’s passionate epic THE BEST OF YOUTH follows two Italian brothers through some of the most tumultuous... Spanning four decades, from the chaotic 1960s to the present, director Marco Tullio Giordana’s passionate epic THE BEST OF YOUTH follows two Italian brothers through some of the most tumultuous events of recent Italian history. In a final period of hopeful innocence, free-spirited Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio) travels the world and settles for a life as a successful psychiatrist, while his tragically introverted and idealist brother Matteo (Alessio Boni) joins the Italian police with the hope of righting society’s wrongs. Their politics and personalities are inextricably intertwined as the world around them violently shifts and they are pushed together and pulled apart by the tides of history and their own divergent dreams. [More]
Starring: Luigi Lo Cascio, Alessio Boni, Adriana Asti, Sonia Bergamasco
Starring: Luigi Lo Cascio, Alessio Boni, Adriana Asti, Sonia Bergamasco, Maya Sansa, Andrea Tidona, Fabrizio Gifuni, Jasmine Trinca
Director: Marco Tullio Giordana
Director: Marco Tullio Giordana
Screenwriter: Stefano Rulli, Sandro Petraglia
Producer: Angelo Barbagallo
Studio: Miramax Films
Reviews for The Best of Youth
An all-encompassing, life-affirming cinematic experience that resembles no other.
It avoids the pratfalls of easy melodrama by maintaining a psychological distance from its characters; there are never any obvious explanations for their choices or behaviors.
Here's the way you want see the film -- the first two hours in your 20s, the middle two hours in your 40s, and the last two hours in your 60s.
Those who see it will, quite frankly, not believe their luck. It is that satisfying, that engrossing, that good.
Its themes are for everybody, though this wonderful drama must surely hold a special relevance for the graying boomers who went through those wild years.
After all the observations on heartache, politics, art, commerce, passion, identity, mortality, even mental health, six hours begin to seem downright compact.
This is the sort of movie you'll recommend to friends and they'll go, 'Six hours! Are you nuts?' and then call you up and thank you in the middle of the night.
Not to be missed by anyone who cares about the joys, sorrows, and challenges of living in the modern world.
By the end of this haunting, hypnotic film, you feel you have watched lives being lived, not just imagined.
An impassioned epic that sweeps up its characters in nearly 40 years of human drama and social history, intertwining the two with a master seamstress' delicacy.
As a movie-going experience La meglio gioventu leaves much to be desired. If you are interested, buy the DVD instead.
Latest News for The Best of Youth
April 05, 2006:
Breaking News: Movies Not Screened For Critics Aren't Very Good
After some furious debate over David Germain's discussion of films "not screened for critics," RT takes a look at the Tomatometers and respective B.O. performances of... More...
December 13, 2005:
Awards Season Gets Rolling with Crix Picks
If you're a fan of the late-year awards season, be sure to add Movie City News to your hit list, because they deliver some consistently excellent coverage. Mid-December is when... More...
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