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Il giovane favoloso

Il giovane favoloso

Movie · 2014 · 10 people

Mario Martone is the director of the 2014 Italian biographical drama Il giovane favoloso ("the extraordinary young man"), also known internationally as Leopardi. Martone wrote the screenplay with Ippolita di Majo, and Palomar produced it. The colour, Italian-language film runs about 2 hours 24 minutes, with listings giving between 143 and 145 minutes. It competed for the Golden Lion at the 71st Venice International Film Festival and was shown the same year in the Contemporary World Cinema section of the Toronto International Film Festival.

The film focuses on the youth of the 19th-century poet Giacomo Leopardi (Elio Germano). An exceptionally bright child, Giacomo grows up under the close watch of his father Monaldo (Massimo Popolizio) in a house in Recanati that resembles one huge library, and feels imprisoned there. While revolutions and winds of change blow across Europe, he strains to connect with the world outside, and at twenty-four he finally leaves Recanati. High Italian society opens its doors to him, but his rebellious spirit struggles to fit in.

Anna Mouglalis plays Fanny Targioni Tozzetti and Valerio Binasco plays Pietro Giordani. The cast also includes Isabella Ragonese, Michele Riondino, Paolo Graziosi, Sergio Albelli and Iaia Forte.

DirectorMario Martone
Production companyPalomar

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Cast

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Valerio Binasco Valerio Binasco Actor · 62 years old Iaia Forte Iaia Forte Actor · 64 years old Anna Mouglalis Elio Germano Isabella Ragonese Michele Riondino Massimo Popolizio Paolo Graziosi Sergio Albelli Renato Carpentieri

Through different eyes

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Mario Martone's portrait of Leopardi resists the typical trap of the biopic, lining up a life stop by stop, by making place the subject of the story: the house in Recanati that resembles one huge library becomes a metaphor for a prison closing in on the poet's mind. Elio Germano's Leopardi is a centre able to carry the film's weight on his own. The tension built with Massimo Popolizio as his father Monaldo is the dramatic core of the relationship between oppression and rebellion. Yet the running time of about 144 minutes is a serious test; in the second half the society scenes may fail to keep the intensity of the Recanati section and slide into a scattered, episodic structure. Competing for the Golden Lion in Venice is proof of its ambition.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

Through Leopardi, the film tells of a child raised under a strict father's watch in 19th-century Italy, caught between education, parental authority and freedom. A young genius growing up among books in a provincial house, struggling to reach the outside world while revolutionary winds sweep Europe, also reflects the generational and class tensions of the period. High society opening its doors after he leaves Recanati, while his rebellious spirit fails to fit in, raises a still-current question about the intellectual's loneliness in society. For viewers who don't know Italian literature some references may float unanchored; the film seems to take that knowledge for granted.

Action & Thriller Fan Puts pace, tension and set pieces first; little patience for slow drama.

Honestly: a drama of nearly two and a half hours about a poet's youth isn't my genre. There is tension, but from a father-son struggle rather than guns. Leopardi's drive to break out of the house and into the world gives the story a goal worth following. Still, for anyone without patience for long dialogue and slow storytelling, it's a demanding watch.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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