STB is an Italian movie through and through - the only atypical quality being that it doesn't stink. (And that there isn't the usual amount of shouting.) This is a sort of sentimental road movie/comedy with the obligatory festival-crowd-pleasing surreal scenes, such as people freezing up at stations or a huge balloon/jelly-fish/whatever lifting up all of Mastroianni's kids up into the air. That's the sort of Felini-like stuff which IQ-starved film students go absolutely ga-ga over, regardless of whether it relates to the rest of the movie or not. "Weird stuff! Yeaaah!"<br /><br />As far as I'm concerned, STB isn't dull and that's all that matters. Besides, its experimental approach (if one can call it that) never has an air of pretentious baloney about it. Perhaps we have Mastroianni to thank for that, who plays it very down-to-Earth. Even when he spits out wise words of advice to his offspring there isn't that unrealistic expectation from the viewer to gasp with shock, bewilderment and awe, something very common in so many other European movies, especially from the 60s and 70s. Too many directors think they reveal the secrets of the universe in their modest little underachieving flicks. Not the case here; at least not in annoying amounts. STB is likable and even amusing at times.<br /><br />As for the "experimental approach", if every other movie that Italians (and other Continentals) release has the same type of surreal silliness going on, then it isn't really experimental anymore, is it? It becomes normal, unsurprising, stale even.<br /><br />It's far easier to cobble up a script chock-full of "metaphoric" nonsense than to actually sit down and write a compact, stirring script with a beginning, middle, and end. STB leans far more heavily toward the latter.