Intriguing but not entirely successful, Marco Bellocchio’s attempt to bring Massimo Gramellini’s novel to the screen struggles to combine the childhood story of Gramellini and his adult life as a newspaper columnist.

The jarring tonal variations – the childhood is languidly shot in nostalgic sepia, the present day goes grittier, pacier – make this feel like two different movies hacked together. In the central role, Valerio Mastandrea, with his hollow cheeks and hungry eyes, is effective casting as a lost and wounded soul.