THE YEAR OF OUR LOVE

A childhood friendship ebbs and flows over the course of several tumultuous decades in Italy’s recent past.

Olivia, precious and precocious, is being raised on the grounds of the opulent Bolognese villa owned by her grandfather, a prominent industrialist. Sensitive and observant Valerio, the son of the estate’s gardener and caretaker and one of the housekeepers, lives alongside Olivia but hails from an entirely different world. The two form a fast friendship in early childhood, encouraged, for dissimilar reasons, by members of their respective families. As Italy endures the violence and upheaval of the Years of Lead and Red Brigades threats—the specter of kidnapping, or worse, looms over even the drive to nursery school—the duo begins the mutating relationship that will hurl them into and out of each other’s lives and beds over the course of almost 40 years. When Italy evolves into a different era of social and political turmoil during the Berlusconi regime, the relationship of Bonvicini’s maturing companions grows more complicated as youthful optimism gives way to the pragmatism of adult life. A diverse collection of secondary characters, ranging from careless social elites to scrappy urban playmates, support and undermine Olivia and Valerio while the plot unfolds in cinematic settings including Olivia’s family’s villa; the working-class area of Rome where Valerio spends much of his later youth; and the ski slopes of Cortina. Valerio recounts the meandering story of their long liaison and ponders the roles of fate and self-determination over the course of a lifetime, echoing some of his (not to be underestimated) father’s thoughts about the inevitabilities of relationships. Elements of his wide-ranging retrospective bear a resemblance to the incredible coincidences which often propel soap operas.

Bonvicini’s star-crossed soul mates are ready for their miniseries.