“The Last One for the Road” is a seemingly aimless drunken drive through northern Italy, a picaresque misadventure in a minor key about a Neopolitan kid, fresh out of college, being taught “the meaning of life.”

Francesco Sossai’s curious gambole of a comedy makes a joke out of that. A couple of people who may have the answer start to reveal “the secret” — but a helicopter takes off, drowning out one, and a train door closes, silently sealing off another.

But this wistful, wandering wonder of a movie — drifting into and out of narrative focus, veering towards and then away from any sense of purpose — has a sensuality and immediacy that is vaguely universal while distinctly and indolently Italian.

It’s ethos? Don’t let anyone you care about get away with telling you “some other time.”

“There is no ‘some other time.'”

Live for the moment. Go for the gusto. But first, “one last drink,” one last round “for the road.” Just don’t look for “Le città di pianura” to win any endorsement from Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

A prologue takes us to an old man’s last day on the job. Two corporate toughs take him in arm and bring him to a spot where, by pre-arranged plan, a helicopter lands. The big boss steps out, calls Primo Sossai (Gianni Da Re) by name, and congratulates him for his lifetime of service.

“Everything,” he says (in Italian with English subtitles). You have done everything for us.”

What’s that worth? A Rolex and a thank-you from a guy pretending to know you and your wife’s name.

For the first time, we hear word of an “urban legend” about this town. For the first time, a character promises to reveal “the secret of life” and is drowned out by a helicopter. And for the first time, our focus shifts to two tipsy louts sleeping it off in a Jaguar that’s seen better days.

Dori (Simone Bergamasco) and Carlobianchi (Sergio Romano) have an appointment to pick somebody — an old friend — up at the airport. “Which” Venice airport is the question. And they’re not finding answers to that in the parade of bars, live-music pubs and roadside eateries where they pursue “one last drink.”

“I forgot what it was I wanted to tell you.”

But stumbling into college kids singing and drinking through a graduation all-night bender, they spy young architect-to-be Giulio (Filippi Scotti) pining for fair Giulia Antonia (Giulia Bertasi), longing to tear her free from their class revels for just a moment. After all, he’s got to go home and be ready for his design presentation/job interview in the A.M.

“Some other time,” she says. They know what that means, even if Giulio doesn’t.

They take him under their wing, and the film becomes his long night and a couple of days of taking stock. There are endless waylays, detours and stops in assorted bars and pubs, a faux American country music roadhouse among them.

“And I thought Germany was ‘Americanized,'” a tipsy German tourist jokes. He’s come here to “see Italy before the Italians ruin it.”

“I think you’re too late,” Carlobianchi — “Charli” to his mates — grouses.

Dori and Charli drag Giulio through past haunts in search of drinks, “snails, cooked perfectly,” and meaning. Cops are evaded, a “ghost highway” in the making isn’t on any map, “Google” included, Italian designer sunglasses and “the theory of marginal utility” are discussed. An architecturally striking tomb is visited.

And these two sixty-ish geezers model their misspent lives for Giulio to see and sample through the bars, the booze, the music and all the life lessons one can absorb in a short time, once you’ve missed any chance of an appointment that would have set your future in stone.

I kept grasping for movie analogies for this film from the director of “Other Cannibals.” There’s a hint of Jim Jarmusch’s night crawl “Night on Earth,” a taste of such “binge” pictures as “California Split,” “Mississippi Grind” and “The Days of Wine and Roses,” and whiff of the Mark Rydell/Steve McQueen Faulkner adaptation “The Reivers” and other more overt “coming of age” tales.

For some reason I can’t articulate, Neil Young’s song “Harvest Moon” kept drifting into my mind — not during the police pursuit or the bachelorette party they crash, but whenever all involved are sleeping it off. That’s kind of the sentimental, melancholy vibe here.

Sossai hasn’t made a movie that sentimentalizes alcoholism, but he has managed to suggest the mistakes, busted dreams, dashed hopes and futility of getting ahead or getting by in a barely-functioning democracy and permanently-rigged “market economy” that makes the bottle such an appealing escape.

There is no “some other time.” And there are no “appointments” or obligations when you can’t remember them the morning after days and nights of living and God-forbid driving in the alcohol-soaked moment.

Rating: unrated, alcohol abuse, smoking, sexual sitautions, nudity, profanity

Cast: Filippi Scotti, Pierpaolo Capovilla,
Giulia Bertasi,
Roberto Citran and Andrea Pennacchi

Credits: Directed by Francesco Sossai, scripted by Adriano Candiago and Francesco Sossai. A Music Box release.

Running time: 1:40