The Social Lives of Drugs
by Dom Holdaway e Pierandrea Villa
Overview
September 8, 2015
100′
Claudio Caligari
Claudio Caligari, Francesca Serafini, Giordano Meacci
Kimerafilm, Rai Cinema, Taodue Film, Leone Film Group
Maurizio Calvesi
Mauro Bonanni
Paolo Vivaldi, Cristiano Balducci, Alessandro Sartini
Luca Marinelli, Alessandro Borghi, Silvia D’Amico, Roberta Mattei
Italy: Good Films
Gallery
Poster
Trailer
Pressbook
Representation strategies, rhetorics and stereotypes
Narrative & characters
Don’t Be Bad is a story of addiction, friendship, and marginalisation set in the outskirts of Rome, in Ostia, in 1995. It concludes Claudio Caligari’s (informal) “Roman trilogy,” following Toxic Love (1983) and The Scent of the Night (1998), and continues his exploration of social decay and moral ambiguity in the Roman periphery. The film was also Caligari’s final work: he passed away shortly after filming concluded in 2015 (when Valerio Mastandrea stepped in to help complete the film).
The film’s driving force lies in its portrayal of addiction as a force that corrodes relationships and destroys lives. At its centre are two friends, Cesare (Luca Marinelli) and Vittorio (Alessandro Borghi). Both live on the edges of the criminal underworld, immersed in cycles of drug use and small-scale dealing. Their initial drug-fuelled nights shift into the gradual diverging of their lives. Vittorio manages to pull himself out of addiction, choosing steady work and building a family life with Linda and her young son, Tommasino. Cesare, despite unconvincing attempts to follow the same path, falls deeper into addiction and violence.
Caligari shows addiction as a lived social condition, in a narrative that recounts tragedy but occasionally laces it with humour. The film exposes the spiral of dependency not only for the users themselves but also for those around them. The most tragic example is Deborah, Cesare’s young niece, cared for by her grandmother after her mother – Cesare’s sister – dies of AIDS contracted from her partner, a drug user. This is not entirely without moralism: though scenes of trips and addiction are not judged negatively by the camera, the self-realisation of Vittorio at the film’s end is almost saccharine, thereby reinstating a moral position.
Within this context, Caligari frames Cesare and Vittorio as anti-heroes, flawed but human, whose tragedies are tied as much to social abandonment as to personal weakness. In this regard, the film’s connection to Pier Paolo Pasolini is explicit. Vittorio takes his name from Accattone, Pasolini’s 1961 film about Rome’s sub-proletariat, and Caligari continues that lineage of social denunciation. The choice to set the story in Ostia – where Pasolini was murdered – reinforces this symbolic link. Many scenes, such as those set in the derelict building where Cesare and Viviana try to start a life together, evoke the ruins and decay that have long marked Italian political cinema – here applied to a bleak image of a forgotten periphery.
Cesare and Vittorio are far from idealised. They are often violent and cruel, starting fights in macho competitions and mistreating women. Samantha, a trans or gender-nonconforming sex worker, dealer, and addict, embodies the film’s most stereotyped figure: hypersexualised, marginal, and disposable. Initially a friend of Viviana, she is subjected to Cesare’s homophobic insults and later to shocking violence when he kidnaps her and forces her to dig her own grave.
Likewise, the women in Caligari’s film are portrayed through simplified archetypes. They are either “pure” figures, like Cesare’s mother and niece, or women marked by drug use and eroticism, such as Viviana. First introduced as Vittorio’s girlfriend and a victim of his violent outbursts, later Viviana lives with Cesare, caught again in a destructive cycle. The film also includes a small but striking early appearance by Emanuela Fanelli – credited just as prima smandrappata (a hard to translate term that could be something like “first slapper”) – whose later fame as a comedian lends retrospective weight to her role as one of the film’s anonymous, exploited women.
Ultimately, Don’t Be Bad portrays a world where women and queer figures serve primarily as fall characters that accentuate the protagonists’ moral decay or redemption. We know little of their personal histories, ambitions, or inner lives. As much as this choice is the result of Caligari’s attempt to foreground the tragic brotherhood between Cesare and Vittorio, it nonetheless remains a missed opportunity that, ten years after the film’s release, undermines the social critique of the film.
Stereotypes & strategies of inclusion
Depicting Use
The film opens with Cesare and Vittorio taking a pill, in a sequence that immediately defines Don’t Be Bad’s kinetic language. The camera’s restless movement and fast-paced montage mirror the hyperactivity of the characters under the drug’s effect. Their behaviour quickly turns volatile: loud and aggressive, Vittorio and Cesare become pushy and violent in their attempt to get more pills from inside a nightclub.
This kind of representation of drug use culminates, a few scenes later, in Vittorio’s “bad trip”. He hallucinates wildly on the road: a passing coach, figures in carnival and circus costumes, and the surreal shooting of a mermaid by a man dressed like Vittorio. The scene feels light-hearted at first – especially through Cesare’s incredulous gaze – yet its imagery is chaotic and meaningless, driven more by pure fear than a more stereotypical, symbolic depiction of the character’s subconscious.
The sequence culminates at home. When the group cook pasta, Vittorio suddenly sees a demon take shape in hot oil in a saucepan. The tight, claustrophobic blocking traps us in his disoriented state – but this time this intensity is not explicitly shown to the audience, we do not see his vision, emphasising the uselessness and falseness of his fear – we just see, in close up, first terror and then disgust in the culminating scene where he spits at the mirror. The sequence marks a key turning point in the narrative: the following fade to and from black reveals a changed Vittorio, who has found work as a builder, seemingly scarred by the experience and driven to change.
Depicting Addiction
Caligari likewise charts addiction through contrasting tones. Two moments stand out in this regard: the sequence featuring the “smandrappata” and Cesare’s later encounter with heroin.
In the former, Vittorio and Cesare perform a display of male bravado, surrounded by women who depend on them for drugs. The men’s power is exaggerated, almost ridiculous, but the women’s desperation is real. When Vittorio throws the cocaine on the ground and the women scramble for it, the scene turns from comic to tragic, in a humiliating image of the women’s dependency.
The tone darkens in Cesare’s heroin sequence aboard the luxury boat. The scene’s careful composition – drugs in the foreground, Cesare pacing anxiously in the back – reveals his inner collapse. When he gives in, the camera fragments his body in rapid cuts and uncomfortable close-ups, turning the drug’s effect into a physical assault on the viewer. Viviana’s discovery of him, her horror and grief make this one of the film’s most painful moments. Here, the representation of addiction is no longer performance, but devastation.
Companionship and Desire
One of the most devastating sequences occurs when Cesare comes home and learns from his mother that his niece Deborah has died alone during the night. The camerawork captures the emotional blow: a subjective shot that lingers on the teddy bear gifted to Deborah by Cesare – printed with “Non essere cattivo” on its T-shirt – before showing the grandmother, small and broken, in a dim light.
Grief drives Cesare and Vittorio into another binge, set in the video arcade opened by Vittorio. The flashing reds, blues, and purples of the scene – forging a kind of “bisexual lighting”, to use a more recent critical vocabulary – envelop their intoxicated bodies. Not by chance, in this light we see proximity between the men on two occasions, embraced in the face of grief but also fighting and rolling around on the ground.
This sequence also gestures toward the film’s subtle homoerotic undertones. Though never explicit, the relationship between Cesare and Vittorio fits what Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick described as a homosocial triangle: their bond is mediated through Viviana, yet their emotional intensity often exceeds the bounds of friendship. Whether or not read as queer, their connection is charged with affection – or the frustrated lack of a desired affection. This peaks in the film’s final scene, when he meets Viviana and discovers Cesare’s young son, breaking down in tears for his lost companion but reviving his bond with the woman around the man they both loved.
Conversations
“Caligari, due film bellissimi in trent’anni. E il terzo?”. Via Internazionale, Christian Raimo, interview with Claudio Caligari during the production of the film.
C.C. «This film is the story of two friends. At a certain point, one decides to go work, but it’s not like he’s better off than the other, who continues to struggle between legal and illegal. When that reality of exploitation enters the suburb, the standardization of work is over. If you think about Rocco e i suoi fratelli, the mechanism is the same there, with the brother who ends up working at Alfa in Arese. But back then, it was a different era, there was another hope. In the early sixties, you could still believe in emancipation through work. Even Accattone begins with the brother saying: “I have to go work”, and someone immediately replies: “He swore”. Today, a hustler sells pills and coke at a nightclub, but in the morning he might also go to work».
CR: «How do you avoid the danger of didacticism, of sociologism?»
CC: […] «I work using semantic codes that, on a first level, can be watched and understood by everyone, so you could also say they are potentially ‘commercial.’ I try not to leave anyone out. It’s simply because of the environment I come from. My formation is that of someone who, as a child and pre-teen, went to the cinema with his father and watched popular films. You can have this conversation more easily in America. Take Taxi Driver. What is it? A cryptic film or a film that is potentially popular in a different way? Look, I think that if I had chosen to make niche, hard-to-see films, maybe I would have made many films. After all, you don’t bother anyone».
Episode of the vodcast Arte Settima featuring an interview with Valerio Mastandrea on the films of Claudio Caligari, including analysis of the film.
“Francesca Serafini Brings Claudio Caligari’s Vision to Life in Non essere cattivo”. Su Italian Cinema Today, anon., interview with the screenwriter.
«Claudio Caligari presented these characters Cesare and Vittoria and their story of friendship to me and Giordano Meacci, another screenwriter that worked with us. From there, we found the common ground in wanting to tell this story that began in Italy in 1995 and led up to the present day. These two characters demonstrate how easy it is to make mistakes along the way and to fall into bad situations just trying to make money to get by. Without culture and opportunity, selling drugs becomes the quickest way “to turn” (bad) as we say in Italy. In the end, they try to turn their lives around because they are moved by the love that holds them together and also to their women, who play very important roles in the film. But unfortunately, love isn’t always enough to save you».
Alessandro Borghi, Luca Marinelli, Silvia D’Amico and Valerio Mastandrea at the Rome Film Festival, 2025, for the ten-year anniversary of the film.
“Nota di regia”, director’s note by Claudio Caligari in the pressbook.
«The field research was conducted through channels that had remained open since the days of Amore Tossico and, above all, through Emanuel Bevilacqua, who played the role of Rozzo in L’Odore della Notte. Emanuel was born and lives in Piazza Gasparri, the heart of Ostia Nuova just steps from the Idroscalo, and he comes from one of the historic Pasolini families, alongside the Citti and the Davoli families. His father and uncles acted in Pasolini’s early films, starting with Accattone, where they played Neapolitans. What emerged was a treasure trove of facts and life stories of people in their twenties, and older, covering the period in which Amore Tossico is set and beyond: an anthropological picture impressive both in scope and truth. From this framework, if you want to play the reference game, rather than a new Accattone or a new Amore Tossico, perhaps a new Mean Streets could emerge».
TV call for the film at the Venice Film Festival 2015, interview with Luca Marinelli, Alessandro Borghi and Valerio Mastandrea.
Business strategies and communication rhetorics
Strategies
From a production standpoint, Non essere cattivo was challenging to finance from the very beginning, perhaps due to the seventeen years that had passed since Caligari’s last film (he was already ill during pre-production) and the decision to create a story that was so raw and realistic in its portrayal of the world. In this context, the director’s premature death, occurring before filming was completed, became the final and decisive obstacle to the completion of the project, which was ultimately completed by Valerio Mastandrea, a friend of Caligari and one of the film’s producers.
Those involved in the project recall that working on Non essere cattivo was not only a professional experience but also the development of a deep friendship among the team, who, together with the director, chose to see this complex project through to the end, motivated by their strong faith in it. The group that emerged, calling themselves “la banda Caligari” (Caligari’s gang), not only helped bring the film to completion according to the director’s vision but also guided it through its final stages of distribution and circulation.
On set, the creation of the characters Cesare and Vittorio by the two lead actors, Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi, stands out. Both actors said they took particular care to avoid a stereotypical depiction of drug addiction, with Marinelli in particular preparing for the role by watching documentaries and reports on the subject.
Publing funding
The film was produced with the support of Mibact – Direzione Generale Cinema e Audiovisivo
Communication rhetorics
The posthumous release of Non essere cattivo presented specific challenges for its promotion, since, as often happens with productions of this kind, much of the publicity relied on the director presenting the film at festivals and to the press. In this case, that role was taken on by Caligari’s friends and collaborators, la banda Caligari, who guided the project through its circulation.
In this context, the director’s premature death created certain difficulties, most notably the decision by artistic director Alberto Barbera not to include the film in the Venice International Film Festival’s competition – where it nevertheless premiered out of competition. Despite this, the film enjoyed considerable visibility, both at festivals and especially thanks to its selection as the Italian entry the Academy Awards in the same year (though it ultimately was not nominated).
During these presentations, the focus was, on one hand, on remembering Caligari, sometimes described as an undervalued figure in Italian auteur cinema, and, on the other, on the role and bond of la banda Caligari, which comes across as a group of artists and friends united by friendship even before their professional collaboration.
The film is presented as the final act of an informal trilogy connecting Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Accattone, Caligari’s Toxic Love and Don’t Be Bad. In the director’s notes and various interviews and reviews, a comparison with Pasolini emerges, from whom Caligari’s perspective inherits a particular way of portraying a suburb in which all traces of residual sacredness have disappeared.
In terms of representation, the film is mostly presented as a story of marginalisation, with few direct references to drug addiction or the minority groups depicted (the two South American drug dealers and the transgender character, Samantha). However, regarding this point, the two lead actors stand out for their statements, focusing on defining their characters and ensuring that their portrayal of drug addiction avoids a stereotypical representation.
Conversations
Event with the screenwriters Giordano Meacci and Francesca Serafini as well as producers Simone Isola e Paolo Bogna.
“La lettera di Mastandrea a Scorsese”. Su Il messagero. Valerio Mastandrea’s open letter to Martin Scorsese in Octobre 2014 to gain attention (from the American director, from the wider public) for the film during its production.
«Dear Martino,
This letter of mine is only an attempt, one that adds to the hundreds we’ve made over these past two years. We can’t reach an amount sufficient to put this gentleman [the director, Caligari] on set, which is his natural place. I thought: this gentleman talks about and mentions Martino as if he were a schoolmate. He knows Cinema, and especially Martino’s Cinema, as if they had made it together.
We lack a lot of money to make this film. It’s small, but there’s still a lot missing, even for that small amount. So I ask Martino to read the script and watch Toxic Love. I hope Martino does this, falls in love with the Cinema of this gentleman, and comes here to meet him, ready to produce his film together with us, who are his little crew that both loves and perhaps hates Cinema for how much we love it.
I hope Martino isn’t offended by how I call him, but it’s this gentleman who always calls him that. That’s what I thought, and that’s what I hope. And even if this letter will be translated and perhaps the translation will lose the emotion with which it was written, it will have been another attempt, to be followed by others, perhaps even crazier. Because the Cinema of this gentleman, Claudio Caligari, deserves more than it has received so far. And because, I repeat, in terms of how much Claudio loves Cinema, perhaps not even you, Martino, do.On behalf of the crew of Don’t Be Bad, I thank you for your attention».
Circulation and audience responses
Circulation patterns
The film was distributed in Italy by Good Films, while its theatrical release abroad was handled by Missing Films (Austria), Bellissima Films (France), Missing Films (Germany), and Uncork’d Entertainment (United States). International sales were managed by Rai Com.
Despite its production challenges, the film benefitted from a widespread circulation at national and international film festivals, where it received numerous awards. Given the scarcity of thematic festivals specifically focused on drug addiction and the marginality of the transgender character, the film did not participate in any particular specialised events. Of particular significance, however, was its selection as the Italian representative for the Academy Award (film in a foreign language), the news of which facilitated the film’s circulation across all areas (festivals, cinemas and television).
In terms of theatrical distribution, the film had a solid presence in cinemas, running for six weeks theatres in Italy and with a peak, on release, in 68 theatres. Its status as a cult film later allowed for a second one-week run on the occasion of its tenth anniversary in 2025. The film also performed very well on television; it was broadcast more than seven times on Rai channels, including three prime-time slots (Rai Movie, Rai 4, and Rai Storia). Shortly after its theatrical release, the film was placed in heavy rotation on Sky Cinema channels.
Regarding streaming in Italy, the film is available on RaiPlay and Netflix, while at the European level, Don’t Be Bad is included in 25 catalogues in 32 European countries.
Festivals (selection)
2025
Festa del Cinema di Roma – Rome Film Fest | Tribute to Claudio Caligari,
Ten Years After His Death, Arena Cinema Sotto le Stelle a Santa Corona | Panorama, Mostra Internazionale del Nuovo Cinema – Pesaro Film Festival | Special Screening, Sudestival | Tribute to Claudio Caligari.
2022
Festival Italissimo in Lyon | Panorama.
2021
Italian Cultural Institute Chicago – Italian Cinema | Panorama.
2020
L’Ombra Nera dei Margini. Urban and Social Peripheries in Cinema | Panorama, Asylum Fantastic Fest | The Cinema of Claudio Caligari, BIF&ST – Bari International Film & TV Festival | Special Event.
2019
Parma Video Film Festival | Claudio Caligari Retrospective.
2018
Popoli e Religioni – Terni Film Festival | Panorama, Trame – Peripheries and Marginality in Contemporary Italian Cinema | Panorama.
2017
Der Neue Heimatfilm Film Festival | Panorama, Italian Film Festival New Zealand | Panorama, CineFesta Italia | Panorama, Minneapolis Italian Film Festival | Panorama, UMIFF – University of Miami Italian Film Festival | Panorama.
2016
Italian Film Festival of Podgorica | Panorama, La Valigia dell’Attore | Panorama, Cairo International Film Festival | Festival of Festivals, European Film Festival Göttingen | Cinema Italia, Festival du Cinéma Italien d’Ajaccio – Festivale di u Filmu Talianu | Panorama, Festival Internacional de Cine de Mérida y Yucatán | Italian Selection, Italian Film Festival Cardiff | Panorama, Presente Italiano | Competition, RIFF – Rome Independent Film Festival | The Narrative Cinema of Claudio Caligari, St. Louis International Film Festival | International Spotlight, Verso Sud | Panorama, Cinevasioni – Prison Film Festival | Competition, Film Fest Gent | Global Cinema, Isola di Ventotene Film Festival | Panorama, Italienska Filmfestivalen | Panorama, Valdarno Cinema Film Festival | FEDIC Award, Lavazza Italian Film Festival | Lights, Drama, Action!, Tirana International Film Festival | Feature Film, Bobbio Film Festival | Competition, Clorofilla Film Festival | Panorama, Mantova Film Fest | Svisti, Fiuggi Family Festival | Panorama, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival | Horizons, Lo Schermo è Donna | Panorama, Sergio Amidei Award | International Award for Best Screenplay, Sorridendo Film Festival | Panorama | 2016Tuscia Film Fest | Panorama, Bagnacavallo al Cinema | Panorama, Cinema Castello dell’Imperatore Estate | Panorama, Festa do Cinema Italiano 8½ Brazil | Panorama, ICFF – Italian Contemporary Film Festival | Panorama, Journées du Cinéma Italien Contemporain à Tunis | Panorama, Ladispoli Città Aperta | Panorama, Premio L’Anello Debole – L’Altro Festival | Panorama, Rassegna del Nuovo Cinema Italiano in Bosnia and Herzegovina | Panorama, Cinemando – Festival of Contemporary Italian Cinema | Panorama, Festival du Cinéma Italien de Brest | Panorama, Festival International du Film Policier de Liège | Official Competition, Italian Film Festival in Scotland | Panorama, 8½ Festa do Cinema Italiano | Panorama, Festival Internazionale del Cinema Patologico | Feature Films, Il Cinema Italiano Visto da Milano | Feature Films and Documentaries, Miami Italian Film Festival | Panorama, Ales Film Festival | Previews and Unreleased Works, BIF&ST – Bari International Film & TV Festival | ItaliaFilmFest / Feature
Films, Cinema Italien à Voiron | Panorama, Festival del Cinema Italiano: from Venice to St. Petersburg | Panorama, Glocal Film Festival | Tribute to Claudio Caligari, Italian Film Festival London – Cinema Made in Italy | Panorama, Los Angeles, Italia – Film, Fashion and Art Festival | Panorama, Portland International Film Festival | Narrative Feature, Festival del Cinema Italiano: from Venice to Moscow | Panorama, Göteborg Film Festival | Focus: Italy, Rotterdam International Film Festival | Regained, Sudestival | Competition.
2015
Mostra de Cinema Italià de Barcelona | Feature Films, Appointment with Italian Cinema in Istanbul | Panorama, Cinema Italian Style | Panorama, Festival de Cine Italiano de Madrid | Feature Film, Festival de Cinema Italiano no Brasil | Panorama, La Città che Sale | Panorama, MittelCinemaFest Bratislava | Panorama, Sulmona International Film Festival | Panorama, Un Posto nel Mondo | Panorama, Venice Italian Cinema in Brazil | Panorama, ViaEmiliaDocFest | Critical Tribute to the Cinema of Claudio Caligari, AFI Fest – Los Angeles International Film Festival | Presentations, Festival du Film Italien de Villerupt | Films in Competition, Invito al Cinema | Panorama, Ortigia Film Festival – OFF | Claudio Caligari Retrospective, Venice International Film Festival | Out of Competition, Cuneo Film Festival | Special Event, Venice in Seoul | Panorama.
Awards
2017
CineFesta Italia (festival): Audience Choice Award – Best Film.
2016
OFFF – Otranto Film Fund Festival (festival): Special Jury Prize.
Ciak d’Oro (awards): Ciak d’Oro Award – Best Producer (Paolo Bogna), Ciak d’Oro Award – Best Producer (Simone Isola), Ciak d’Oro Award – Best Producer (Valerio Mastandrea), Ciak d’Oro Award – Revelation of the Year (Alessandro Borghi).
Roma VideoClip – Il Cinema Incontra la Musica (competition): Special Mention – Emerging Composer (Paolo Vivaldi).
Valdarno Cinema Film Festival (festival): FEDIC Award (Federazione Italiana dei Cineclub Award).
Premio Raf Vallone (award): Best Composer Award (Paolo Vivaldi).
Tirana International Film Festival (festival): Best Director (Claudio Caligari), Best European Feature Film.
Bobbio Film Festival (festival): “Gobbo d’Oro” Award – Best Film, Best Actor Award (Alessandro Borghi), Best Actor Award (Luca Marinelli).
CliCiak (festival): Black and White Section Award (Angelo R. Turetta).
Premio Sergio Amidei (festival): International Sergio Amidei Award for Best Screenplay (Claudio Caligari), International Sergio Amidei Award for Best Screenplay (Francesca Serafini), International Sergio Amidei Award for Best Screenplay (Giordano Meacci).
Sorridendo Film Festival (festival): Best Film Award.
Nastri d’Argento / Silver Ribbons (awards): Silver Ribbon – Best Producer (Pietro Valsecchi), Silver Ribbon – Best Cinematography (Maurizio Calvesi), Silver Ribbon – Best Sound Recording (Angelo Bonanni), Silver Ribbon – Persol Personalities of the Year (Alessandro Borghi), Silver Ribbon – Persol Personalities of the Year (Luca Marinelli), Special Award (Valerio Mastandrea).
Festival International du Film Policier de Liège (festival): Best Actor Award (Alessandro Borghi).
BIF&ST – Bari International Film & TV Festival (festival): “Franco Cristaldi” Award – Best Producer, “Vittorio Gassman” Award – Best Leading Actor (Luca Marinelli).
Festival del Cinema Città di Spello (festival): Best Sound Editing Award (Fabio D’Amico), Best Screenplay Award (Francesca Serafini), Best Screenplay Award (Giordano Meacci).
Premio ColonneSonore.net (award): Best Score for an Italian Film 2015 (Paolo Vivaldi).
Sudestival (festival): Special Mention – “Sguardi – Bcc di Monopoli”.
2015
Rencontres du Cinéma Italien à Toulouse (festival): Special Mentions.
Incontri del Cinema d’Essai – Premio FICE (event): Actor of the Year Award (Alessandro Borghi).
Venice International Film Festival (La Biennale di Venezia): “Gianni Astrei” Award, “Pasinetti” Award – Best Film, “Pasinetti” Award – Best Actor (Luca Marinelli), Assomusica “Ho Visto una Canzone” Award (Riccardo Sinigallia), “Schermi di Qualità – Carlo Mazzacurati” Award, FEDIC Award (Federazione Italiana dei Cineclub Award), “Gillo Pontecorvo – Città di Roma / Arcobaleno Latino” Award, Nuovo IMAIE Revelation Award (Alessandro Borghi), “Sorriso Diverso Venezia” Award – Best Italian Film.
Reception
As mentioned, the film benefitted from a distribution in theatres. Over the six-week run in Italy it made over €680,000 for 130,000 tickets sold. Both press and user reviews on aggregating sites are largely very positive. For the latter, the film has a rating of 7.1/10 on IMDb, based on 5,300 reviews; this is slightly higher (7.4) when restricting to the 3,625 reviews gelocated in Italy. On Letterboxd, the film has a rating of 3.8/5 and a total of 17,550 views recorded. On MyMovies, the rating is 3.53, though the average rating from the press is 4.17.
Across these spaces, many reviews focus their attention on how the film does not offer a moralistic or didactic portrayal of drugs. What is presented is not a simplistic “message” about addiction, but a complex picture, made up of attraction, downfall, friendship, hope, and defeat. The theme of addiction is depicted as an expression of an existential void, a lack of prospects, a world in which the young protagonists seek “elsewhere” the happiness they cannot find. Many reviews describe the film as a “punch in the gut,” because it conveys both the desperate chase for the “trip” as an escape from daily life, and the real impossibility of fully saving oneself. Critics have praised the visual language and screenplay for their restraint: the direction avoids rhetoric, giving voice to bodies and gazes (“bright, sick, hidden eyes,” to use one description) without self-pity.
Despite widespread praise from the vast majority of journalists and critics, some comments note that the film, at least in its opening part, employs a certain nostalgic “suburban” tone and a familiar panorama of young delinquents and drugs – narrative structures that may recall earlier models of Italian peripheral cinema. Overall, the film is considered a work that elevates the “drug-addiction drama” genre to a broader social reflection, rather than an individual story.
Regarding the representation of women and social minorities, reviews highlight a rather marked limitation: the film focuses almost exclusively on male relationships and dynamics, particularly the friendship between Cesare and Vittorio. Although portrayed sensitively, female characters are described by critics as marginal, ancillary figures compared to the two main characters. Some analyses note that Cesare’s mother, the sick little girl, and the girl who later becomes his partner represent the vulnerability of female figures in the suburbs. However, their profiles are not explored as deeply as those of the male protagonists. Ethnic minorities are not an explicit focus in the reviews: the setting is working-class and peripheral, but no strong discourse on racial or cultural inclusion emerges beyond social marginalization. Regarding the condition of women, some critics invite consideration of how the film partially reproduces a male-centered view of marginality, in which women are victims or supportive figures rather than agents of the narrative.
On the other hand, some reviews appreciate the presence of female figures who, although only in supporting roles, emerge with their own dignity: the scene in which Cesare’s mother wants to protect her sick niece is read as a moment of strength in a male-dominated film. In summary, critical responses favor the social realism and coherence of the settings, but note a certain imbalance in the distribution of subjectivities: the story remains centered on men and male friendship in the suburban context.
The reviews do not approach the emotional relationship between the two protagonists from a queer perspective: any potential homosexuality or homoeroticism in their relationship is not presented as a theme by critics. Many reviews, of course, focus on the friendship between the two protagonists, describing it as intense but without framing it in terms of the homosexual tensions between the characters. This point, interestingly, emerges a lot more clearly in the user reviews of the film on sites like Letterboxd – especially in more recent years.
Overall, the response from critics and audiences to Non essere cattivo has been largely positive, praising the way addiction is depicted as a social and human phenomenon, rather than an individual fault; however, discourse on inclusion and diversity remains more implicit than explicit.
Italian and foreign press
Italian Press
Paola Casella, “Non essere cattivo – Recensione”, mymovies.it, 7 September 2015.
«Beyond a rather predictable plot, and one that has been seen many times in cinema, what strikes in Don’t Be Bad is the vital energy that permeates it, the hunger for revenge, the voracity with which Vittorio and Cesare bite into life, tearing off pieces of raw flesh. The cinematography (by Maurizio Calvesi), clear and neon-colored, creates a “local” 3D, a pagan bas-relief. Even suburban archaeology is put to use to outline a tough and toughening universe, a wild planet where it is inevitable to feel like Martians – as Caligari himself must have felt Martian compared to much of contemporary uncivilization.».
Camillo De Marco, “Non essere cattivo: Caligari’s last will and testament”, Cineuropa, 7 settembre 2015.
«It would not be so outrageous to bring up the name of Pier Paolo Pasolini in relation to Caligari’s films, because the settings, the places, the language, the dreams and the frustrations of these working-class suburban kids are the same as those found in the literary and cinematic works of PPP, albeit brought up to date over the decades. Just like Pasolini, Caligari has a really affectionate way of looking at things. We laugh and are moved in this “story of pure love”, as Valerio Mastandrea, who is accompanying the film to the festival, described it».
Concita de Gregorio, “La borgata di Caligari inizia dove finisce quella di Pasolini”, La Repubblica, 8 settembre 2015.
«Today Vittorio deals cocaine and pills: they are called Popeye, Playboy, pastel colors, and engraved smiles. The “grandchildren of Accattone” have the bodies and voices of Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi, who, more than acting, embody twenty-year-old children grown up in a place where there is nothing but everything that is missing. “It would be nice to be Martians.” “Yes, but to go where?”
Don’t Be Bad closes the trilogy of a director who, in forty years, shot three films: Amore tossico, L’odore della notte, and this one. Caligari died 100 days ago. […] Don’t Be Bad is the most beautiful Italian film seen so far in Venice, and one of the most successful ever. Out of competition, however.».
Raffaele Meale, “Non essere cattivo”, Quinlan, 7 settembre 2015.
«Don’t Be Bad, like all posthumous works (the editing was completed after the director’s death), will probably be destined for praise, applause, tears (sometimes crocodile tears); it should instead be taken for what it is: the testament not only of a great author, but of a “reason why” to make cinema. As such, it should be protected, defended, and promoted. […] Don’t Be Bad is so far the most beautiful Italian film seen in Venice, and perhaps, since the beginning of the year»
Andrea Pirruccio, “Il terrore del vuoto”, Cineforum (FIC), 12 settembre 2015.
«A film about the terror of emptiness: this is, among other things, Don’t Be Bad, the last […] beautiful work of Claudio Caligari. […] A terror of emptiness that Caligari seems to want to exorcise with a staging from which emptiness itself is erased, where the protagonists are on screen from beginning to end, and in which silence is banned by uninterrupted conversations and explosions of music capable of wiping out thought».
Giacomo Calzoni, “Non essere cattivo, di Claudio Caligari”, Sentieri Selvaggi, 8 settembre 2015.
«You can see all the love and all the anger, that awareness of filming things for the last time (the falling crosses, the cemetery, the teddy bear) that, however, allows the characters to live on (the final addendum, a year later), passing the baton to the next generation. But Don’t Be Bad must necessarily be regarded as great cinema even independently of its posthumous nature: because it is increasingly rare to see so much furious life chasing itself within a single film, with a love for its characters that consistently reflects the humility of an artist who never told reality to lecture others, but to share the beauty and poetry hidden behind his stories. Without ever forcing himself to please at all costs, without ever being tempted to hold back».
Andrea Maderna, @giopep, 25 dicembre 2016, via Letterboxd (225 likes).
«“Che buffo leggere le parole “Rai”, “Mediaset”, “Ministero”, “Movieplayer” e “tax” subito prima che inizi un film della madonna»
Rebekah Olson, @to_have_a_home, 30 July 2023, su Letterboxd (0 likes).
«I’ve been watching way too much aggro toxic masculine shit lately. I need a break for real. That being said, Cesare’s 90s fits were good and the performances were strong. Homoeroticism AND homophobia/transphobia because repressed shitbags contain multitudes. I’m just sick of watching stuff that doesn’t respect women and characters you just want to scream at and shake because they can’t stop fucking up, despite opportunities to do better. Luca always hot though».