Synopsis
Five young men dream of success as they drift lazily through life in a small Italian village. Fausto, the group's leader, is a womanizer; Riccardo craves fame; Alberto is a hopeless dreamer; Moraldo fantasizes about life in the city; and Leopoldo is an aspiring playwright. As Fausto chases a string of women, to the horror of his pregnant wife, the other four blunder their way from one uneventful experience to the next.
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Cast
- Franco InterlenghiMoraldo Rubini
- Alberto SordiAlberto
- Franco FabriziFausto Moretti
- Leopoldo TriesteLeopoldo Vannucci
- Riccardo FelliniRiccardo
- Leonora RuffoSandra Rubini
- Jean BrochardFrancescco Moretti
- Claude FarellOlga
- Carlo RomanoMichele Curti
- Enrico ViarisioSignor Rubini
- 100
The New York Times
Full of brilliantly executed coups de théâtre, showing the director's natural flair for spectacle. - 100
Chicago Tribune
One of the screen's great portrayals of the hell-raising and malaise of young men in their 20s, hit Italy like a comic thunderbolt when it was released there in 1953 -- and it struck the American art-house audience in much the same way when it premiered here in 1956. Now it returns, and unlike its five aging-boy protagonists, this movie hasn't lost its first youth. - 100
Los Angeles Times
It was this ineffably poignant semiautobiographical reverie that unleashed fully Fellini's shimmering, flowing poetic style, echoed perfectly in a plaintive score by Fellini's potently evocative collaborator, Nino Rota. - 91
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Its elements all come together with an unforced perfection, every scene feels real and alive in a way that many of his more surrealistic later films do not, and Leonard Maltin, for one, has argued that I Vitelloni is no less than Fellini's masterpiece. - 90
Chicago Reader
Though still realist in approach, its aura of bitter nostalgia places it squarely among Fellini's most personal and atmospheric works. - 80
TV Guide Magazine
This semiautobiographical work by Federico Fellini was the first film to bring him a measure of world attention. - 80
Empire
It’s as wistful and sad as it is funny and charming, with the first of Nino Rota’s great scores to keep it burbling along. - 75
San Francisco Chronicle
It's a film of sensitivity, observation and humor - a must-see for Fellini enthusiasts and a worthwhile investment for everyone else.
