Set in a provocatively unspecified moment in Italy's history yet adapted from a 1909 novel by American author Jack London, Martin Eden is a passionate and enthralling narrative fresco in the tradition of the great Italian classics. Martin (played by the marvelously committed Luca Marinelli) is a self-taught proletarian with artistic aspirations who hopes that his dreams of becoming a writer will help him rise above his station and marry a wealthy young university student (Jessica Cressy). The twinned dissatisfactions of working-class toil and bourgeois success lead to political reawakening and destructive anxiety in this enveloping, superbly mounted bildungsroman.