In all respects except in reality, Giovanni Tortorici’s Diciannove, premiering in the US on July 25,  appears to be a coming-of-age film. Its protagonist, Leonardo (Manifredi Marini), is a restless teenager on the precipice of attending university, moving aimlessly between Italy and London. He’s the sloppy younger sibling known both derisively and affectionately as “Lele.” Even the film’s title, Italian for “nineteen,” reveals the precarity of Leonardo’s age: Still a teenager but insistently an adult, a reckless child, and a free thinker.

With this promising ambiguity and our protagonist’s contradictory nature at its heart, Diciannove charges off through ditzy, multicolored club scenes and college lectures. While Leonardo’s excursions through each bar are decidedly contemporary, thrumming techno music and sloppy makeouts, he spends his time at school in another eon, scouring the texts of thirteenth-century Italian poets like Dante. 

The fragmented sequences of the film inject an experimental ambiance, which ranges from traditionally conspicuous and formally striking quick cuts to digital effects that imbue everyday scenarios, such as exams, with an intriguing spark. These experimental scenes remind one of Luca Guadagnino’s Queer — perhaps unsurprisingly, considering Guadagnino’s producer credit on Diciannove. But Tortorici’s debut also offers distinct stylistic choices that elevate the film beyond its seemingly straightforward college-bound narrative. In short, they create a beautiful, strange, enigmatic world where we meet and accompany Leonardo on his journey into adulthood. 

The true extent of the film’s exploration, though, seems to end with its formal elements. In other words, its storyline fails to match its visuals in execution and vision. Diciannove often grows too aimless, resembling the character at its center: determined and intellectual but irksome in habits. While Leonardo’s hermitlike habits ramp up — as he refuses to make friends at school or even leave his room to cook meals, instead opting for a hotplate meal of lentils and black rice — the film often lacks the momentum found in its ambitious experimental moments. 

Occasionally, flares of brilliance emerge, such as Leonardo’s excursions in London and Siena with his sister, Arianna (Vittoria Planeta), which burn with the excitement and melancholy that define their relationship. Both actors, too, seem to relish these scenes, where they are at their affectionate best. Or else there are his oral exams with his dismissive professor, which exemplify the contradictory struggle between the detriment and empowerment of Leonardo’s intellectual self-assurance. 

But rather than using these scenes to see its protagonist “come of age” — which is to say, wade into his messy character and emerge with something novel, despairing, enlightening, anything concrete — the film instead registers his self-authoritative, cocky regression as its primary focal point. Though his characterization could be compelling, it misses a concrete flourish to bring the film to a satisfying end. 

Still, Tortorici’s first film shows promise in style, execution, and story. But perhaps, like its protagonist, it could use the refinement that turns ambition into excellence. 

Review Courtesy of Arleigh Rodgers

Feature Image Credit to Oscilloscope