The Best Of Youth

Perhaps the most amazing thing about Marco Tullio Giordana's six-hour dramatic epic is that it feels no longer than the usual 90-minute-plus feature. In fact, it's so well paced that it feels considerably shorter than most. While the subject is really Italy as it stumbles out of the ruins of WWII, the story follows Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio) and Matteo Carati (Alessio Boni), two very different Roman brothers who come of age and grow old during the final four decades of the 20th century. Both are part of the first generation of Italians born amid the country's post-WWII unemployment and inflation, and the moment that defines their destinies occurs in the summer of 1966....