de facto film reviews 2 stars

Paolo Sorrentino has been one of the masters of cinema for two decades, but sadly, his latest film, Parthenope, does little to burnish his reputation. Known for films full of visual splendor, fascinating characters and deep, intriguing examinations of powerful themes, his latest eschews that in favor of a far more superficial endeavor. Instead of the lyrical meditations of Youth, the intimate examinations of Hand of God or the depiction of rotting genius in The Great Beauty, Sorrentino has replaced them with a look at the male gaze.

Courtesy A24

The problem here is, the subject at hand really is only skin deep. There can be interesting characters who are truly awful people-think Jimmy the Gent, in Goodfellas-but the title character in this work is devoid of interest. In fact, as one of the other characters suggests, she is not even that intelligent. She talks a lot and she runs circles around the buffoons by which she is surrounded. Yet, nothing we see shows her to be beyond the level of perhaps a precocious teenager.

That one of the storylines has a renowned professor of Anthropology smitten with her entirety, is unconvincing. Will she become a professor? For her potential student’s sakes, we can only hope not. Will she become the lover of rich and powerful men? When it suits her, yes, but what else will she do? She may simply pursue the life of an aesthete. This does not really suit her, as she is vapid, hollow and completely narcissistic. Maybe she ought to go into acting? If these sound like random suggestions, they are not. They are, in fact, each of the strands of the film, none of them sustained with enough momentum or depth to carry a film approaching two and a half hours in length.

Courtesy A24

While Celeste Dalla Porta is, truly, magnificent in the title role, the script gives her little real meat to chew on. Indeed, there are times the film plays almost as a parody of what many think of when they hear the words Italian Cinema. There are lots of people smoking, and lots of broken hearts. There are wall to wall sociopaths all being hailed as great geniuses. It is almost a Randian nightmare, except the film does avoid the visual banality found in the works of that author. Indeed, it is those visuals which save the film from the bottom of the barrel.

The film tries and fails to demonstrate how while men are gazing at women, the women can use that to their own advantage. The trouble with this film is that beyond her amazing looks and cunning, Parthenope is empty. While this may be the point, it fails to land in a way that feels fresh, clever or meaningful. Indeed, much like The Substance, the film begins to take on and make the opposite argument it intends to make. Unlike a film such as 1900, where the horrible fascists were terrifying and yet gripping, in a story that brings home precisely what that was all about, one is left merely feeling like they have gone on an extended summer vacation through the countryside with a highly paid escort.

Courtesy A24

Moments that should be sublime fail to connect because the film has not earned your heart or your mind. Celeste Dalla Porta cannot save this picture, nor can an all too brief appearance by Gary Oldman. Indeed, had the film given us more of the interiority of Parthenope, by way of the Oldman character-no spoilers-it might have served to illuminate who she was supposed to be. If the film wants to make you think, it may succeed, but mainly in considering what else you could have been watching instead. As it is, you will probably feel like you just toured a few great locations but learned nothing of lasting value.

Parthenope is now playing in theaters.