This movie is, to say the least, an unusual movie. I recently read a review of this movie which stated something alone the line: "This movie has no plot, and is nothing move than an excuse for the boys to run around naked on the beach." Having already seen the movie some time before I knew that statement to be wrong, therefore determined to someday watch it again and add it to my movie listings. The movie does have a plot. The plot jumps around a lot and is not real easy to follow. As a result someone who is easily distracted by the fact that the boys are running around naked on the beach about a third of the time, could miss the plot. But for those who may be interested, I will give a short summary of the plot here.
 A priest who teaches at the international school in Rome puts an advertisement in the local paper which is designed to entice boys from the school who are bored, or at least not content, and rebellious enough to take off on their own and skip school. The advertisement is in English, therefore all the responses are from English speaking students at the school. The priest plants the advertisement where one particular student will find it, but the other seven come across it on their own. (And it becomes clear at the end of the movie that this is not a one time deal for the priest.) When the eight boys arrive at the place indicated by the advertisement, they are lead to a secluded stretch of beach and left on their own for about a week. The Priest leaves one box of food, but does not tell the boys it is there. He does indicate by what he tells the boys when they first arrive that he expects them to learn something by way of this adventure, but is very ambiguous as to what he expects them learn. The movie is narrated by one of the boys, and if you pay attention to what he is saying, you will see something of what the boys are learning, or at least something of what they are thinking.
 As I said earlier the plot jumps around a lot. The movie starts with one the boys and the priest in school, then jumps to the boys on the beach when they first decided to go skinny dipping in the ocean. Following that as the one boy narrates we see how the boys got to the beach through flashbacks. The movie is constantly jumping between what is happening on the beach, what took place before the boys went to the beach, at least once or twice seems to jump to a scene after the boys return to the school. And although about a third of the movie show the boys skinny dipping, or running around naked on the beach, they also engage in several other activities. The stay on the beach covers several days, but it is not clear just how many.
 I enjoyed the movie. Despite some brief discussions of philosophy, the movie was overall made on a light, carefree, and fun level.

I read somewhere that the original theatrical release of this movie was rated X and since there is no violence, sex, drugs or bad language in the movie that the rating must have been strictly for nudity. There is in fact one or two times a curse word is used in the movie, but if the movie was indeed rated X, it must have been for the nudity. As I said earlier, the boys run around nude for about a third of the movie, and there is no attempt to hide anything from the camera. Full frontal and full rear nudity are seen several times.