The Immature (2011)

The Immature arrives from Italy with a premise engineered in a laboratory for maximum middle-aged comfort. Six school friends, now in their forties, learn that a bureaucratic mishap has voided their diplomas, and so they must return to the classroom and retake the final exam. What follows is a summer of study sessions, revived crushes, and the gentle hum of nostalgia. Paolo Genovese directs with the efficiency of a man who knows exactly which buttons to press, and the Italian box office rewarded him with nineteen million dollars for his trouble.

What the film does not do is instruct. There is no sermon here, no moment where a character turns to the camera and explains how we ought to live. The women in the ensemble, and there are several, function as romantic partners, former flames, and comic counterweights, which is to say they are present without being argued for. The cast is uniformly Italian and uniformly attractive. No racial politics intrude, no environmental anxiety, no reckoning with wealth or class. The characters worry about exams, marriages, and whether they still have it. They do not worry about the world.

All of this is, in its way, a relief. The film wants only to amuse, and it succeeds at a modest register, coasting on the chemistry of performers who clearly enjoy one another's company. A sequel followed in 2012, and a Spanish-language remake is reportedly in development, which suggests the premise travels well even when nothing else does. We are left with a pleasant, weightless comedy about the terror of being forty and the consolation of old friends. It has nothing to teach us, and it does not try.