In ‘Diciannove,’ Italian coming of age takes a literary turn, but ends up just as sticky
Late in Italian writer-director Giovanni Tortorici’s pop-up book of a coming-of-age movie “Diciannove” (Nineteen), there’s a great scene in which his arrogant, neurotic protagonist, Leonardo (Manfredi Marini), a student of classical Italian literature in Siena, is visiting a cousin (Zackari Delmas) attending university in Milan. As the two commiserate over crazy adventures, the chatter turns to disagreements and griping (culture, language, kids today, drugs aren’t fun anymore) and suddenly they sound like middle-aged men bemoaning why anything ever had to change.