And Tortorici's insistence on capturing that feeling while avoiding the usual narrative tropes is what makes his film both fascinating and somewhat impenetrable.

"[14] Guy Lodge of Variety called the film "a vivid, humane evocation of what it's like to be 19 years old, with the world at your feet and over your head".

[15] Simone Emiliani of Mymovies.it gave the film three-and-a-half out of five stars, calling it a "bold and decidedly convincing debut where even its limitations make it even more electrifying".

[16] Lorenzo Ciofani of Cinematografo.it also gave the film three-and-a-half out of five stars, writing that "Giovanni Tortorici's first work is a disturbing seminar on the youth of a student who loves the literature of the past and does not know what to do in the present".

[18] Martina Barone of GQ Italia called the film "a courageous and arrogant debut" and wrote, "If the university years are the same ones in which one experiments the most, so with his debut feature film Giovanni Tortorici decides that it is right to try to be everything and its exact opposite, to have a well-defined character, but at the same time to be able to allow oneself to try, improvise and even make mistakes.

Those who have never made a mistake at nineteen have never had the opportunity to grow up, so it is fun to watch a film so openly repulsive, so obsessively focused on not pleasing anyone...."[19]