The Best of Youth
Italian theatrical release poster
Italian	La meglio gioventù
Directed by	Marco Tullio Giordana
Screenplay by	Sandro Petraglia Stefano Rulli
Story by	Sandro Petraglia Stefano Rulli
Produced by	Angelo Barbagallo
Starring	Alessio Boni Luigi Lo Cascio Jasmine Trinca Adriana Asti Sonia Bergamasco Fabrizio Gifuni Maya Sansa Valentina Carnelutti Andrea Tidona Lidia Vitale Claudio Gioè Paolo Bonanni
Cinematography	Roberto Forza
Edited by	Roberto Missiroli
Production company	Rai Fiction
Distributed by	01 Distribution
Release dates	20 May 2003 (2003-05-20) (Cannes) 20 June 2003 (2003-06-20) (Italy;Act I) 27 June 2003 (2003-06-27) (Italy;Act II)
Running time	366 minutes(theatrical version) 382 minutes(TV version)
Country	Italy
Language	Italian
Budget	L.12 billion[1]
Box office	$2.7 million[2]

The Best of Youth (Italian:La meglio gioventù) is a 2003Italianromantic drama film directed byMarco Tullio Giordana and written bySandro Petraglia andStefano Rulli. Afamily saga set in Italy from 1966 through 2003, it chronicles the life of the middle-class Carati family, focusing primarily on brothers Matteo (Alessio Boni) and Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio) as their life paths separate during youth, encompassing major political and social events inpost–World War II Italian history.

Originally conceived as aRai television miniseries, it premiered at the2003 Cannes Film Festival, where it won thePrize Un Certain Regard. It was then given a theatrical release in Italy as two 3-hour films (titledAct I andAct II), before being aired with broader success onRai 1 in a slightly longer four-episode television version later that year. In the U.S., the film was released byMiramax in its theatrical version.

The title of the film, an ungrammatical rendition ofLa miglior gioventù ("the best youth/young people"), comes from the title of a 1954Friulian language poetry collection byPier Paolo Pasolini, who in turn borrowed it from a line ofAlpini World War II songSul ponte di Perati;^[3] here, Giordana uses it to refer tohis generation, which is also the main characters' one, made up of those young people who participated in theSessantotto.^[3]

Two brothers go their separate ways after attempting to rescue a young girl, Giorgia (Jasmine Trinca), from an abusive sanitarium. The brothers are Matteo and Nicola Carati (Alessio Boni andLuigi Lo Cascio). Their parents are Angelo (Andrea Tidona) and Adriana (Adriana Asti), their older sister is Giovanna (Lidia Vitale), and their younger sister is Francesca (Valentina Carnelutti). Their friends, their lovers and others drift through, including Giorgia who struggles with mental issues, but whose life seems to follow in parallel.

Matteo walks out of his first exam, while Nicola passes an exam on his way to qualifying as a doctor (and will pursue a career inpsychiatry). Matteo takes mental patients for walks to help them begin to feel normal and takes a particular interest in his patient Giorgia. Noticing that Giorgia has been wounded byelectroshock therapy, he decides to remove her from theinstitution and take her along with him and Nicola—who are about to go on a trip toNorway.

Eventually, Giorgia is captured by the police and taken back to theasylum. Matteo, filled with sadness and depression, returns toRome and joins the army. Nicola continues to Norway and gets a job as alumberjack. The brothers meet again inFlorence just after the 1966Arno River flood. Here, Nicola meets a university student, Giulia (Sonia Bergamasco).

Nicola and Giulia are living together inTurin, but the two do not marry.

Matteo leaves the army and joins the police force. During this time, Matteo shows signs of continuing depression and anger. He accepts an assignment inSicily, a place corrupted by the Mafia. Meanwhile, Nicola and Giulia conceive and care for Sara, their daughter.

In Sicily, Matteo meets a photographer in acaffè named Mirella (Maya Sansa). She wants to be a librarian, and he advises her to work at a beautiful library in Rome.

Because of his temper, Matteo is forced to leave Sicily. He decides to reside in Rome but refuses to visit his mother.

Meanwhile, Nicola becomes a psychiatrist, and works to eliminate the abuse and maltreatment of patients in mental hospitals. He finds Giorgia in one of these hospitals. She is tied to a bed in inhumane conditions, does not talk, and shows fear of being touched by others.After some time, Giulia gets drawn into a secretRed Brigadescell. One night, she leaves Nicola and Sara and disappears into theterrorist underground.

Years later Matteo walks into that same library and sees Mirella for the second time. They fall in love, and one evening, make love in a car. Eventually he pushes her away.

Mirella meets with Matteo with news for him, but he behaves harshly and forces her to leave. On New Year's Eve, Matteo decides to finally visit his mother. Everyone is there to celebrate. Instead of waiting for the traditional toasts, however, Matteo decides to leave early and, at midnight, jumps off the balcony of his apartment and kills himself.

The family is devastated by the tragedy. No longer motivated, Nicola's mother quits her teaching job and lives a life in solitude in Rome. Nicola, feeling that he could have saved Matteo and not wanting to make the same mistake again, arranges for the capture of Giulia to prevent her from killing someone else or from getting killed. She is sentenced to 17 years in jail. During her jail term, Nicola visits Giulia and proposes to her but is rejected.

Nicola finds a photograph of Matteo taken by Mirella. He is encouraged by Giorgia to meet with Mirella which, after some hesitation, he agrees to do. When he meets Mirella, Nicola learns about her son (Andrea) and that Matteo was the father. Nicola breaks this exciting news to his mother and they visit Mirella and the boy on the small island of Stromboli. Inspired by new meaning in her life, Nicola's mother decides to stay with Mirella and her grandson.

Nicola and his friends acquire and plan the reconstruction of an old villa house in Tuscany. Giulia (out of jail) meets Francesca but chooses not to talk to Sara, watching her from afar. Meanwhile, Sara, now in her early twenties, is still struggling with the poor choices her mother has made. She decides to move to Rome to studyart conservation and becomes engaged to Mimmo. During this time, Nicola finds out his mother has died and, as a result, travels to Stromboli to visit Mirella and pay his respects.

Having finally moved past the death of Matteo, Nicola and Mirella fall in love. Sara, now happy and strong, is encouraged by Nicola to confront her mother and try to patch things up. Giulia, in desperate need of love, embraces Sara, but is not ready to open up completely.

The film ends with Matteo's son, Andrea, visitingNorway, specificallyNorth Cape, which is where his father and Nicola ventured to go at the beginning of the movie, but never completed their journey.

Principal photography began in March 2002,^[4][5] taking place mainly inFlorence,Turin andCollegno in the following months.^[6][7][8] On 26 June 2002, filming moved toStromboli, lasting three days.^[9] Filming also took place in Rome andNorth Cape, Norway.^[8][9]

Originally set for a television broadcast onRai 2,The Best of Youth was bought byRai 1 and then indefinitely shelved from its scheduled air date of fall 2002.^[1][10] Set for February 2003, it was delayed again after TV spots had already aired.^[10] Freedom of expression associationArticolo 21, liberi di... accused Rai 1 director Agostino Saccà and his successor Fabrizio Del Noce of making a politically charged use of public television in favor of theBerlusconi government (Editto Bulgaro).^[10] In April, the film was selected for theCannes Film Festival,^[10] where it had its world premiere on 20 May 2003, competing in theUn Certain Regard sidebar.^[11] Here, it received the Prize Un Certain Regard along with widespread critical acclaim, credited as having rekindled Rai's interest, who decided to give the film a theatrical release before airing it.^[1]

Due to its extensive runtime,The Best of Youth was divided in two parts for its theatrical release in Italy, premiering on 7 and 8 June 2003 at theTaormina Film Festival:^[12] the first part (Italian:Atto primo,lit. 'Act I') was released by01 Distribution on 20 June, followed by the second one (Italian:Atto secondo,lit. 'Act II') on 27 June.^[12] A four-part version, with an additional 20 minutes of running time, was finally broadcast from 7 to 15 December 2003 on Rai 1 at 8:45 pm:^[3][7][13]

OnRotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 94%, with an average rating of 8.40/10, based on 63 reviews, the critic consensus says that the film "earns its 6 hours running time by telling an engrossing story with compelling characters."^[17] OnMetacritic, the film has a score (using aweighted average) of 89 out of 100, indicating "universal acclaim".^[18]According to film criticPeter Bradshaw, the film falls within the tradition of several films that cover expansive times of Italian history through the story of one family, such asRocco and His Brothers andThe Leopard.^[19]

In a four-star review,Roger Ebert wrote, "No good movie is too long, just as no bad movie is short enough. I dropped outside of time and was carried along by the narrative flow; when the film was over, I had no particular desire to leave the theater, and would happily have stayed another three hours. The two-hour limit on most films makes them essentially short stories. “The Best of Youth” is a novel."^[20]

Ed Gonzalez, writing forSlant, described the film as an "epic elegy to family and country is a towering work of narrative fiction."^[21] TheSan Francisco Chronicle said it was "so in-depth, so appealing, so easy to sit through and so anomalously grand scale that few who see it will ever forget it", adding it was "a full meal in a world of snacks."^[22] TheNew York Daily News wrote, "After all the observations on heartache, politics, art, commerce, passion, identity, mortality, even mental health, six hours begin to seem downright compact."^[23]

• List of longest films

• Sandro Petraglia & Stefano Rulli (2004).La meglio gioventù, un film di Marco Tullio Giordana,Rai Radiotelevisione Italiana.ISBN 88-397-1269-0
• "Best of Youth Pressbook"(PDF).public.asu.

• The Best of Youth atIMDb
• The Best of Youth atRotten Tomatoes
• The Best of Youth atMetacritic
• The Best of Youth atBox Office Mojo

• 2003 films
• 2003 drama films
• 2000s historical drama films
• Italian historical drama films
• Films about schizophrenia
• Films directed by Marco Tullio Giordana
• Films set in Florence
• Films set in Norway
• Films set in Palermo
• Films set in Rome
• Films set in Turin
• Films set in 1966
• Films set in 1968
• Films set in 1974
• Films set in 1977
• Films set in 1983
• Films set in 1992
• Films set in 2000
• Films set in 2003
• Films shot in Florence
• Films shot in Norway
• Films shot in Rome
• Films released in separate parts
• 1968 protests
• Years of Lead (Italy) films
• Italian-language historical drama films

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