This handsome biopic succeeds in reproducing snippets of biography and spiritual anguish, yet suffers from academic didacticism and too many inconsequential scenes. Martone is on a crusade to kindle ...

In one of his notebooks from 1820, Giacomo Leopardi, the greatest Italian poet of the 19th century, wrote that “it is not enough to understand a true proposition; one must also feel the truth of it.” ...