24-07-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Diciannove' Review: Stalling of Age
Twice in Giovanni Tortorici's 'Diciannove,' the aimless literature student Leonardo (Manfredi Marini) goes out clubbing with acquaintances. House music pounds as he swaggers across the dance floor, chugging liquor and making out with strangers. One of the scenes ends with Leonardo vomiting as his sister (Vittoria Planeta) pulls a sour face. The other finds him passed out and being carted off in an ambulance.
That neither of these boozy sequences leads to emotional growth is part of the point of this often engaging and occasionally aggravating debut feature, which drifts through episodes from Leonardo's 19th year in a desultory fashion. ('Diciannove' means nineteen in Italian.) The movie opens in Palermo before trailing Leonardo to London and then Siena, where he swaps his degree only to shirk his studies, deride his professors and disdain his peers.
Full of jerky editing and destabilizing cinematography — think quick zooms and unusual angles — the movie's chapters rarely follow the logic of cause and effect. Reshuffle our protagonist's spells of debauchery and misanthropy and not much changes narratively. Instead, 'Diciannove' subverts coming-of-age convention to linger in what starts to feel like a feature-length first act. For Leonardo, the immaturity is not a phase, nor does it crescendo into a lesson to be learned. It's just 19.
If the dearth of character development is a gag, 'Diciannove' doesn't offer much of a punchline. But Tortorici's filmmaking is stylish enough to make even the slipperiest sequences pop.
DiciannoveNot rated. In Italian and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 48 minutes. In theaters.
