Il Sorpasso is a pungent, satiric view of the economic boom of the late fifties and early sixties, and joins La Dolce Vita in unmasking the spiritual malaise that fuels the jet-set. Vittorio Gassman once again excels in the role of a rogue, the fast-driving, fast-talking playboy Bruno Fortuna, who lures a leery young student, Roberto (Jean-Louis Trintignant), into his sports car for a jaunt along the Riviera designed to show the timid boy how to take big bites out of life. On leaving the streets of Rome, Roberto, whose education and ethics are rooted in tradition, and we as well, are treated to a neo-neorealistic view of Italy's new surface; in this Italy, even farmers dance the twist. Bruno's and Roberto's contrasting ways are dramatized in hilarious and sharply-observed episodes in which the friendly Bruno removes layer after layer of cover to reveal a lonely miscreant, yet grows increasingly attractive to his wide-eyed captive. In his orbit, Roberto loses his timidity and stiffness, but also his ideals and, finally, his life.