Once more, the fact that a movie is "based on a true story" doesn't make the movie particularly interesting. The story is about a group of scientists who worked in Rome in the Thirties and later contributed to the development of the atomic bomb. All minus one, Ettore Majorana, whose disappearance creates very little suspense and is the subject of its own movie.
Professor Enrico Fermi is the most famous of the group and the focus around which the plot develops. Unfortunately, events seem to take place in a vacuum, the passing of time is not being indicated and the scenes move from Rome to Sicily and other locations without any cinematic connection. Therefore one should guess that the story starts around 1928, when Majorana was still an undergraduate and living with his mother (a useless role played by Virna Lisi). Already the brightest student, Majorana was sought after by his friends but already considered an eccentric. Fermi and Majorana meet the following year and from then on events overlap, with the Panisperna's boys experimenting and Majorana leaving Italy in 1933 to work with Heisenberg (the man himself, of Breaking Bad fame, but we don't get to see him).
Back to Italy, while Fermi and the boys enjoy success, Majorana is suffering physically and mentally. Finally in 1937 Majorana starts teaching at Naples, only to disappear mysteriously one year later. We do not follow the events leading to his disappearance, but just hear his friends talking about it. The movie wraps up with Fermi and his family sailing to the US in 1939, to escape the racial laws.
Allegedly, the movie was cut from a much longer TV mini-series and the result is definitely disappointing, although I am not sure adding more narration time would have helped a story that lacks anything even remotely cinematographic. There's no character development, no suspence and not even much of a narrative except following the main characters around to the university, to parties, to dinners and listening to disappointingly trivial conversations.
Professor Enrico Fermi is the most famous of the group and the focus around which the plot develops. Unfortunately, events seem to take place in a vacuum, the passing of time is not being indicated and the scenes move from Rome to Sicily and other locations without any cinematic connection. Therefore one should guess that the story starts around 1928, when Majorana was still an undergraduate and living with his mother (a useless role played by Virna Lisi). Already the brightest student, Majorana was sought after by his friends but already considered an eccentric. Fermi and Majorana meet the following year and from then on events overlap, with the Panisperna's boys experimenting and Majorana leaving Italy in 1933 to work with Heisenberg (the man himself, of Breaking Bad fame, but we don't get to see him).
Back to Italy, while Fermi and the boys enjoy success, Majorana is suffering physically and mentally. Finally in 1937 Majorana starts teaching at Naples, only to disappear mysteriously one year later. We do not follow the events leading to his disappearance, but just hear his friends talking about it. The movie wraps up with Fermi and his family sailing to the US in 1939, to escape the racial laws.
Allegedly, the movie was cut from a much longer TV mini-series and the result is definitely disappointing, although I am not sure adding more narration time would have helped a story that lacks anything even remotely cinematographic. There's no character development, no suspence and not even much of a narrative except following the main characters around to the university, to parties, to dinners and listening to disappointingly trivial conversations.