I Vitelloni

Director: Federico Fellini
Year Released: 1953
Rating: 2.0

A group of mixed up young men wander around their tiny little Italian town without much direction - the film basically focuses on just one of them, a thoughtless womanizer who pursues anything with a pulse even though he has a young wife and baby back home. As for other characters, very little is known about them: one is a writer trying to become famous, one has a mixed-up sister and the last one is aptly named 'Moral'do and acts as the conscience of the group. When the womanizer gets his 'comeuppance' (if you can even call it that), the film gives the false hope that he's settled down and things are going to be brighter for him and his family (the suggestion is that the proper way to deal with a man-child is through whipping him like a child; his wife, all tears and no brains, will probably not be enough for him); when Moraldo leaves town, it's more out of disgust than enlightenment ... and further, the film never explores why he should be the one to take off: exactly what has he learned from all this?