Italian director Pasquale Festa Campanile's first film is a pretentious, mostly inept attempt to adapt Vasco Pratolini's 1963 novel (of the same title, which roughly means "The Evenness of Reason"). It's a chronicle of post-WWII "miracolo economico" Italy using as a protagonist the fictional character of Bruno Santini (played by Frenchman Sami Frey), whose passionate ideals of Justice and Equality are put to test when he faces the tasks of adulthood, such as getting a job at an industry in Florence and facing working conditions. He also disputes the attention of beautiful Lori (Catherine Deneuve) with his best friend, strict Marxist Milo (Enrico Maria Salerno).
The film deals with Bruno's political and sentimental education - the battle of the young passionate heart against the maturing "evenness of reason". Many Pratolini's novels have been adapted for Italian films (the best one is probably Valerio Zurlini's wonderful "Cronaca Familiare", 1962), and he himself was very active as a screenwriter (most notably as collaborator in Visconti's "Rocco and His Brothers", 1960).
Though Deneuve is very beautiful and the sight of the industrial neighborhood of Florence in movies is unusual, Festa Campanile's direction is a disaster -- the film suffers from excess of ambition and empty "moodiness", lacking cinematic ability, energy and originality. It's mostly boring, underachieved and pretentious. Campanile's filmography as a co-writer has some highlights (Visconti's "Rocco" and "Il Gattopardo", Ferreri's "L'Ape Regina" etc), but as a director, it's all bombs or near-bombs: his vulgar parodies such as as "La Cintura di Castità" and "Quando le Donne Avevano la Coda" helped sink the prestige of the Commedia all'Italiana in the late 60s/early 70s. Don't wast your time, see "Cronaca Familiare" or Bertolucci's "Prima della Revoluzione" instead. My vote: 3 out of 10.
P.S.: the casting director was berserk: he cast 29 year-old Brazilian actress Norma Bengell (in horrible makeup) as the MOTHER of 27 year-old French actor Sami Frey!!!
