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At the top of many directors' lists of favorite films or most influential films, I Vitelloni is one of Fellini's earlier works. The setting is a small coastal town in Italy, where several young men are having a bit of a struggle facing their own futures. What kind of future can they have in such a small town, and how hard do they really need to work if they are living with their parents? The friends often end up acting irresponsibly or impractically, and sometimes dishonorably too. The movie is somewhat autobiographical as well.

Out of the friends, there is only one who seems to have some sort of groundedness, although he, like his friends, still wanders about quite a bit, regularly sitting outside in the late hours of the night. This is Moraldo, who provides somewhat of a stability to his friends, who are all eccentric in their own ways. The least enjoyable of these is Fausto, who has married Moraldo's sister because he got her pregnant. Fausto seems to love his wife, but hits on other (unavailable) women without hesitation. Another is an aspiring writer who naively attempts success as a playwright when the girl next door would most likely provide him with the happiness he is looking for.

The story of these layabouts (which is somewhat what the title means) is told in small episodes, injected with plenty of humor while still letting the audience understand the hopes and hopelessness that they experience. I like these contrasts, as well as the contrasts Fellini shows of the town itself (of their boredom on the beach, where the only entertainment they can think of is to watch someone fish, to the extravagance of the carnivale and the contest at the beginning of the movie).

I didn't make much of a connection to this movie, although I can see how it would have affected its original audiences, and I can appreciate the variety of its characters, sets, and camera angles. The music is nice and there were some meaningful moments. While it's not my favorite of the (three) Fellini films I've seen, I'm glad I finally saw it, since I hear it referenced so often. The final scenes made it worth the watch for certain, and I'm definitely starting to understand this period/area of filmmaking better now that I have seen it.