Fuga di cervelli (2013)

Emilio is the classic “loser” secretly in love with his childhood friend, Nadia, but he can’t find the right moment to tell her. Just as he is about to, she tells him that she has won a scholarship to Oxford and will be leaving soon. Heartbroken, Emilio finds a way to get accepted into the prestigious university despite his poor grades, along with his friends: Alfredo, who is blind and has always been Emilio’s best friend; Lebowski, a skilled hacker who sells slushies and marijuana; Franco, an unmotivated philosophy student who is gay but not out; and Alonso, a young man confined to a wheelchair and compulsively obsessed with sex. Once they arrive in England, Emilio starts making a move on Nadia by suggesting answers to the questions asked by their lecturer. In return, she invites the naïve Emilio to study with her that evening. Since the subject they are supposed to study is the lungs, Lebowski suggests going to the medical school morgue and taking one to give to Nadia. The strange plan fails when the boys are accidentally locked inside and forced to spend the night on the morgue tables. The next morning, the medical class goes to the morgue to dissect a body: the one chosen is Emilio, who pretends to be dead. Only the sound of the bell prevents disaster. Thinking he is alone, Emilio gets up and accidentally lies down on a corpse, becoming stuck. As he struggles, Nadia arrives and, believing Emilio is having sex with a dead person, runs away in fright. Meanwhile, Alfredo and Alonso are making progress too: Alfredo finally meets the girl who makes announcements over the loudspeaker, while Alonso manages to catch the attention of Karen, an English girl who is passionate about Shakespeare. After days of silence between Emilio and Nadia, she decides to invite him to dinner with her whole family. He accepts, but the dinner turns out to be more awkward than expected: Nadia’s relatives, who are psychologists, start asking Emilio questions about what happened in the morgue. At the end of dinner, they explain to her that the boy shows no symptoms of any mental disorder, except for being in love. Alonso and Alfredo also arrange dinners with their girlfriends, but both end in the worst possible way. Alonso hides his disability from Karen, and when she sees that he doesn’t move aside to let a disabled man pass, she gets angry and runs off. Alfredo, who has also hidden his disability, discovers that Claudia, the girl from the loudspeaker, is blind too, and runs away without telling her anything. After spending the night getting drunk in the park, Emilio vents at his friends, insulting them and making it clear that it is time for them to change. His words shake the group. The next day, before taking the train back to Italy, Emilio talks with Claudia in her recording studio. He vents a little about his complicated love life with Nadia and his situation with his best friends, but unbeknownst to Emilio, the recording microphone has been left on, and the whole university has heard his moving speech. Emilio’s friends decide to intervene and stop him as he is about to leave for Italy. Before setting off after him, Karen and Claudia make up with Alfredo and Alonso. When they reach the station, Nadia can’t find the right words to convince Emilio to stay, and he boards the train. With Karen and Alonso’s help, Lebowski gets into the control cabin and stops the train, bringing it back to the station. When Emilio gets off the train, stunned by what has happened, Nadia comes up to him and kisses him. Meanwhile, Alonso and Alfredo also become couples with Karen and Claudia, while Franco, whose breasts have grown considerably as a side effect of the pills he is testing, and Lebowski kiss.