Italiano medio 2015

Giulio Verme is a radical environmental activist who challenges the plan to level a local park for a luxury development led by tycoon Giancarlo Cartelloni. Born to TV-obsessed parents who neglected him, he grows up with a deep-seated hatred for television and mass media. After leaving home, he becomes an ardent environmentalist, an animalist, and a vegan, excelling in his environmental studies and meeting fellow activist Franca Solidale, eventually moving in with her.

As the years go by, Giulio Verme grows increasingly unsure how to mobilize those around him, including Franca, whom he sometimes judges as not fully aligned with his ideals. When Franca leaves to volunteer for two weeks, his schoolmate Alfonzo Scarabocchi returns and tries to cheer him up with a provocative plan: a pill that supposedly lowers human brain activity to 2%. Under the drug’s influence, Giulio becomes impulsive, crude, and self-absorbed, cheating on Franca with his neighbor and later sneaking into an exclusive nightclub where he impersonates a famous footballer. He even borrows the bouncer’s Hummer and crashes it into a tree in the very park he’s trying to defend, then uses an excavator to vandalize it further.

The next day, with the park suddenly soaked in media attention, Giulio realizes the power of publicity to delay Cartelloni’s levelling plans. He contemplates eco-terrorism as a means to wake the city up and joins an environmental NGO that plans to contaminate the city’s water supply to highlight the value of resources. To pursue this mindset, Giulio secures more pills from Alfonzo Scarabocchi, but he becomes increasingly addicted and trapped in a life he thought he had abandoned. He marries Sharon, and his life takes a sharp turn toward fame when talent scouts from the reality show Master VIP notice him and propel him toward the finals. Franca returns home and, after hearing about recent events from Sharon and Alfonzo, accompanies them to the Master VIP finale at the TV studio.

On Master VIP, finalists must sever ties with their past to become true VIPs: Giulio must divorce Sharon Pacchianotti and cut loose from Franca and Alfonzo. At first, he complies, but Franca and Alfonzo reveal a staggering truth: the pills never existed, and Giulio’s “transformation” was a product of his own imagination to justify reckless behavior. In a heated, incoherent speech that shifts between his competing personas, he captivates the audience long enough for Cartelloni to declare him the winner. The moment of triumph dissolves into chaos as he crashes into the camera, faints, and falls into a coma.

While he remains hospitalized, a psychologist explains that his mind is manifesting a split personality born from years of repressing his desire to embrace conformity. When Giulio awakens, he recognizes the value of compromise as a practical, sometimes necessary, approach in Italian life. Reframing his path, he discovers a new route to save the park: with Cartelloni’s approval, he launches a renewed reality show where contestants are tasked with rebuilding the park using gardening tools, turning the crisis into a community-driven revival.