La meglio gioventù The best of youth

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Summary

This film is about the members of an ordinary, modern Italian family, in love, at work, at one another's sides and on one another's nerves. The lives of the two brothers at the center of the story,...

This film is about the members of an ordinary, modern Italian family, in love, at work, at one another's sides and on one another's nerves. The lives of the two brothers at the center of the story, Matteo and Nicola, tell a tale of youthful baby-boomer idealism, rebelliousness, and disillusionment, followed by the mellowing of middle age. Qualified as a doctor, Nicola embodies '60s restlessness, as he becomes a woodworker. Diffident literature student Matteo becomes a soldier, then a policeman and detective. Their lives unfold as threads in the larger historical tapestry, wherein events such as the Florence floods of 1966, workers' uprisings in Turin a few years later, the Red Brigades terrorism of the 1970s, and the Mafia trials of the 1990s occur and affect them. Though their lives follow wildly divergent paths the brothers remain close, and their decisions figure strongly in determining each other's futures. The film presents a fascinating study of the ways in which people continue to grow after they have become adults.

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