Pulling One’s Weight: Our Review of ‘Parthenope’
- Rated: R
- Genre: Drama, Romance
- Release Date: 2/21/2025Paolo Sorrentino's Parthenope reminds me of a saying about people being unable to say no to a beautiful face. The titular character (Celeste Della Porta) has such a face, and she's also the kind of beautiful woman who reads. Funnily enough, in this tragecomedy, she get her share of nos, even from old people who don't deserve her. John Cheever (Gary Oldman), vacationing in Naples in 1973, turns her down, because gay men only want women for friendship. She deals with setbacks in her academic career, thanks to her quasi-adversarial relationship with her professor, Devoto Marotta (Silvio Orlando). She does get a yes from a Bishop (Peppe Lanzetta), a relationship she treasures as she gets old (Stefania Sandrelli). Let us start with Parthenope’s good parts, as it does boast a great elder supporting cast, especially Silvio Orlando. It's not just men pulling their weight here, actresses like Isabella Ferrari, who plays an actress/agent, do their part. Ferrari has a presence even while wearing a mask, even if all she does is monologue about art like the cast does. The film also has its share of decent cinematography. But then again it's easy to light Italy and its pretty citizenry. Sorrentino's films are love letters, but this feels more like Hand of God in that it takes roots on a place and time. There's also an irony here about characters disparaging Naples, a city it portrays as one with innovation and light. A generous approach to Sorrentino's method is that he's impressionistic, using characters for world building detail. But doing so feels like he's using characters to speak at the titular character in Parthenope, forgetting to develop her. After coming into this world in 1950, the movie skips and shows her as an adult, emerging from the Mediterranean. There are better ways to introduce a protagonist, better than a half baked reference to Boticelli's The Birth of Venus. Young adult Parthenope is, as I wrote above, a beautiful woman who reads, her books feeling like a prop on her hand. I've met my share of beautiful, academic women, and it takes 45 minutes for the film to sell the latter part of that. It is also strange enough to see Parthenope come out of Sorrentino who, I assume, lived through the early 1970s. People who lived during that decade probably did their share of watching older people and their romantic lives. All of this, though, comes off as iPhone face, yassified nostalgia, depicting a time by airbrushing the politics out. There may be a reason for this - maybe in taking out most of the era, Sorrentino is trying to relate to the young. Its depiction of religion is equally strange, existing here for Parthenope to write an anthropological paper about.Religion is one of the things that Sorrentino tries to dismantle but he ends up with a hollow film lacking in spirit. Watch Parthenope in select Canadian theatres.Paolo Sorrentino's Parthenope reminds me of a saying about people being unable to say no to a beautiful face. The titular character (Celeste Della Porta) has such a face, and she's also the kind of beautiful woman who reads. Funnily enough, in this tragecomedy, she get her share of nos, even from old people who don't deserve her. John Cheever (Gary Oldman), vacationing in Naples in 1973, turns her down, because gay men only want women for friendship. She deals with setbacks in her academic career, thanks to her quasi-adversarial relationship with her professor, Devoto Marotta (Silvio Orlando). She does get a yes from a Bishop (Peppe Lanzetta), a relationship she treasures as she gets old (Stefania Sandrelli). Let us start with Parthenope’s good parts, as it does boast a great elder supporting cast, especially Silvio Orlando. It's not just men pulling their weight here, actresses like Isabella Ferrari, who plays an actress/agent, do their part. Ferrari has a presence even while wearing a mask, even if all she does is monologue about art like the cast does. The film also has its share of decent cinematography. But then again it's easy to light Italy and its pretty citizenry. Sorrentino's films are love letters, but this feels more like Hand of God in that it takes roots on a place and time. There's also an irony here about characters disparaging Naples, a city it portrays as one with innovation and light. A generous approach to Sorrentino's method is that he's impressionistic, using characters for world building detail. But doing so feels like he's using characters to speak at the titular character in Parthenope, forgetting to develop her. After coming into this world in 1950, the movie skips and shows her as an adult, emerging from the Mediterranean. There are better ways to introduce a protagonist, better than a half baked reference to Boticelli's The Birth of Venus. Young adult Parthenope is, as I wrote above, a beautiful woman who uses her books like a prop on her hand. I've met my share of beautiful, academic women, and it takes 45 minutes for the film to sell the latter part of that. It is also strange enough to see Parthenope come out of Sorrentino who, I assume, lived through the early 1970s. People who lived during that decade probably did their share of watching older people and their romantic lives. All of this, though, comes off as iPhone face, yassified nostalgia, depicting a time by airbrushing the politics out. There may be a reason for this - maybe in taking out most of the era, Sorrentino is trying to relate to the young. Its depiction of religion is equally strange, existing here for Parthenope to write an anthropological paper about.Religion is one of the things that Sorrentino tries to dismantle but he ends up with a hollow film lacking in spirit. Watch Parthenope in select Canadian theatres.
- Directed by: Paolo Sorrentino
- Starring: Celeste Dalla Porta, Gary Oldman, Stefania Sandrelli
Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope reminds me of a saying about people being unable to say no to a beautiful face. The titular character (Celeste Della Porta) has such a face, and she’s also the kind of beautiful woman who reads. Funnily, in this romantic tragicomedy, she gets nos, even from old people who don’t deserve her. […]
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