Perhaps I Vitelloni will finally be ranked as Federico Fellini's best film, sufficiently rooted in neo-realism to convey an authentic sense of environment in its evocation of Fellini's memories of adolescent boredom and rootlessness in a provincial town (Rimini). Those who have seen George Lucas' American Graffiti will recognize that film's inspiration in I Vitelloni, described in the New Yorker as the story of “frustrated small-town boys with big ideas, the...sons of indulgent, middle-class families, who cadge off their parents, loaf, and dream of women, riches, and glory. Their energies are wasted in idiotic pursuits; whatever dreams or ideals they have are pathetically childish or rotten. ...Federico Fellini observes the farce of their lives without condescension; his tone is satirical, yet warm and accepting - the distinctive Fellini tone, in his first fully confident piece of direction.”