The Best of Youth

In exchange for a small piece of your life, you receive an infinity.

Those who see it will, quite frankly, not believe their luck. It is that satisfying, that engrossing, that good.

The Best of Youth takes its chance--almost unheard of, these days--to bloom and unfurl like a novel.

At nearly six hours, pic's extreme length lets Giordana and screenwriters Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli build up a novelistic rhythm, pulling the audience so deeply and forcefully into their story that it becomes like a enveloping dream; when it's over, parting with the characters is truly sweet and sorrowful.

Eminently watchable, The Best of Youth nonetheless lacks the devastating emotional gut punch of its obvious inspiration, Visconti's "Rocco and His Brothers."

Full of nuance and complexity, but it is also as accessible and engrossing as a grand 19th-century novel.

All the pieces converge in a powerful rush during the second half.