Yile Yara Vianello is a joyful tale in Laura Luchetti's understated and compelling coming-of-age story.

By Manuel Betancourt

There are plenty of good reasons why summer has become a fitting setting (and, in turn, a fitting metaphor) for coming-of-age stories. While spring suggests renewal and winter retreat, the long, sunny days of summer lend themselves to stories of unbridled discovery. The stifling heat encourages a kind of surrender that might just help you rediscover yourself, perhaps for the first time. Laura Luchetti’s stirring “This Beautiful Summer” may tread familiar ground in that regard, but her cleverly mounted Italian period piece brims with such a playfully self-conscious sensibility that you can’t help but fall for its charms.

Described as “freely inspired” by Cesare Pavese’s “La bella estate,” Luchetti’s film is set in Turin in the summer of 1938. It stars Ginia (a fascinating Yile Yara Vianello), a young woman who has moved from the countryside with her brother in the hope of a more exciting life. Only when we first meet her is it easy to see how she has shielded herself in a rather routine routine that only serves to oppress her. She is a dutiful worker in a downtown studio, where her punctuality and talent as a seamstress and patternmaker consistently impress her boss. And in her free time, she mostly enjoys the company of her brother and his group of friends, who all insist on a mundane kind of life. That is, of course, until she meets Amelia (Deva Cassel).