Brilliant nostalgia piece from Federico Fellini, arguably the best film of his formative, post neo-realist years, about five man-child layabouts in a small country town who sponge off family, dodge responsibility, and revel in the joys of booze, women, and male friendship. When the most dashing of the group, Fausto (Franco Fabrizi), is forced to marry a girl he knocked up, and get a job at a local merchant shop, the remaining pack envy his seemingly adult choices, until he hits on the boss’s wife, steals a priceless statue from the inventory, and nearly destroys all the earned good will of the marriage. Fellini’s autobiographical examination of friendship, responsibility, and growing up is filled with joyous moments tinged with nostalgic yearnings and disappointments, like when the group intellectual (Leopoldo Trieste) dismays at the wasted opportunity of selling a play to a boozy fey actor from Rome, or when a rambling, drunken Alberto Sordi longs for his beloved sister, who has run away with a two-timing boyfriend; it’s a dreamy landscape of parties and loafing, perpetuated with deeply felt emotions of regret and loss, but not without a positive understanding for the hopes of future prosperity.