I have to ask… have I been the only mug watching this awesome Italian drama every Saturday night for the past three weeks? I reckon I probably am, you know. I’ve seen absolutely zero reviews of it in the newspapers, and I haven’t seen a shred of advertising from the BBC. Am I dreaming this four-part series up? Has The Best Of Youth actually happened? Sod it, even if it has been a dream I’m going to review it because it’s THAT good. If it’s a dream I love me and my dreams. What a dream this has been! Over the jump there’s my review of the final instalment, but tune in tomorrow where I’ll review another dream – the one where Sarah Silverman wants to marry me.

Last night we re-joined the action in the early 1990s and Sara – Nicola and Giulia’s fast-growing daughter – has turned out to be a beautiful, intelligent and feisty young woman. After Nicola had sent some music books to Giulia in jail (she doesn’t want to know and returns them), Sara has a go at him for still loving his wife (her mum) and that he should move on with his life. Oh, and she will be moving to Rome to study art restoration and lie with her auntie Francesca.

Poor Nicola. I really felt for him. As a single father, he put his whole life into raising Sara and now she flies the nest. Kids eh?

But something extraordinary then happens that breaths new life not only into Nicola but also his mum. When he goes to Milan for a psychiatric evaluation he sees a big poster advertising a photography exhibition. The image is of his deceased brother, Matteo, half-covering his eyes with his fingers. He goes to the exhibition and stares at Matteo’s image for a long time. He buys a catalogue.

Giorgia is now talking, is lucid and is much better. Looking at Matteo’s eyes in the catalogue, she thinks that their was more to the relationship with the photographer than just subject/photographer. She urges Nicola to go and talk to her.

Giorgia runs away from the hospital when she hears that Nicola doesn’t want to meet the woman – Mirella – but is quickly gathered up. But Nicola doesn’t want to take Giorgia back to the hospital – he feels she’s ready to slowly be re-introduced into the real world. Good luck Giorgia – your part in all this has been immense and I was really rooting for you when you stride off into the sunset.

Giorgia’s parting shot was to pique Nicola’s interest about the photographer who took Matteo’s picture. When he meets her in Sicily (during the time Giovanni Falcone was assassinated by the Mafia) they have a good cry over the man who left them almost a decade before, and Mirella is the first person Nicola has dared to speak about his brother’s suicide for years. Mirella, for her part, has some bombshell news – she has a seven-year-old son called Andrea. Matteo is his dad.

Nicola races back to Rome to tell his ageing and still-broken hearted mum the news. He persuades her to come to Sicily with him to meet her grandson. Despite some resistance she decides to go. Soon she’s so glad she did, because the three of them - Nicola, Mirella ad Adriana – help each other to heal, just by being together and sharing. It’s a lovely sequence in the episode – grandmother getting to know grandson, while Nicola and Mirella get closer. It’s a shame when Adriana dies (peacefully). We don’t see it on camera , but I was sad. But also glad that Andrea got to know his nan, and she found some happiness before her end.

We were fast approaching the end of the episode, and for the final scenes (in the present day) we were at Carlo and Francesca’s beautiful farm conversion in the heart of the Tuscan countryside. My God it was a beautiful house.

There was Carlo and Francesca with all their kids, Mirella and Andrea had come along, Nicola, Sara and her new fiancé and… and… the ghost of Matteo. This was the only cheesy moment of the whole thing – it was obvious that Nicola and Mirella were into each other but they were always making embarrassing small talk and skirting issues. It was also obvious that they both couldn’t start anything because they were both feeling guilty because of Matteo. When they were walking in the woods together, Matteo walked past, stopped, turned around and walked with them, putting his hands on each of their shoulders. When he gently pushed them and allowed them to walk on, everything was alright. Actually it wasn’t that cheesy and quite an effective scene – I was almost crying so it must have done the job.

The episode finished with Andrea taking the same trip his new step-father did to Norway in his summer holidays.

And so, life continues.

And this is what this enormous, sprawling family drama was all about… life. How during the passing years, we live with and carry our memories, good and bad. And how the ongoing cycle of life can be wonderful and fantastic and unpredictable but also cruel and sad. It still goes on, whatever happens – we have our own experiences, they get passed on and someone new takes the baton and live their life.

There was so much to digest in these four, large episodes. From Nicola and Matteo’s road trip with Giorgia (which really helped to mould each brother’s personality), Nicola’s trip to Norway, Matteo joining the army, Nicola marrying Guilia, the birth of Sara… watching this was like sitting down with someone you really like and leafing through their family album.

What I also liked about The Best Of Youth was the way it used real life incidents in the news to weave the drama around. I really do think the very best dramas have a political edge to them or, at least, have real life events at their core.

At the end of it all, The Best Of Youth was terrific – big, meaty drama that took its time. You could get into the characters, enjoy and savour the way they spoke to each other and sit back and immerse yourself in the slowly-forming and changing family relationships. I haven’t seen a drama for a long time that portrayed human grief, love, sadness and happiness as accurately as this.

Maybe it’s my own Italian heritage, but it spoke to me on personal levels too. That’s all well and good but I’d like to think that even if I didn’t have Italian blood in me I’d still think it was fantastic. I urge you all to track it down and devour it like a good, old-fashioned Italian meal.

Episode one review here.
Episode two review here.
Episode three review here.