Dir/Wri: Paolo Sorrentino | Cast: Celeste Dalla Porta, Stefania Sandrelli, Gary Oldman, Silvio Orlando, Daniele Rienzo, Dario Aita, Isabella Ferrari, Luisa Ranieri, Peppe Lanzetta, Marlon Joubert, Silvia Degrandi, Lorenzo Gleijeses, Biagio Izzo, Nello Mascia, Alfonso Santagata | Italy 137′
Paolo Sorentino’s second love letter to his home of town of Naples is predictably gorgeous to look at and the sun always shines. The Greeks gave the city the name Partenope in the 8th century BC, and the bay of Naples is certainly magnificent. But after the first twenty minutes my attention started to drift away from the prize-winning pretty images to consider the vacuous protagonist at the centre of it all who was increasingly failing to engage my interest. How was Partenope going to enthrall me for another two hours? Well it didn’t.
It’s 1950 and baby Partenope is born in the sea in front of her family’s villa gradually growing up to be a feminine siren representing the modern Italian woman, independent and free, in a checkered existence that revisits a tragic family episode the past, but swerves away from lasting love or motherhood (but not for lack of options).
Monza-born actor Celeste Dalla Porta, who also appeared in The Hand of God, does her best to be alluring. Beautiful in a classic Italian way, she drifts around in immaculate trouser suits or skimpy bikinis, tossing her tousled chestnut locks and casting ‘come hither’ glances. But after a while it all feels more like a glamorous fashion shoot. Interestingly Saint Laurent Productions is involved in the drama’s making.
Men and women waft in and out of this charmed female’s life projecting their desires onto her and she just smiles enigmatically and smokes another cigarette, an emotional vacuum. Throughout Partenope remains an underwritten cipher, excelling academically until Stefania Sandrelli steps in to her role, in the film’s finale, bringing Partenope, now in her 70s, up to date with a bittersweet return to Naples.
A cast of well-known Italian actors fill out the serpentine storyline: her university professor (Orlando); an acting coach called Flora Malta (Ferrari); a Naples-born star Greta Cool (Ranieri) and a ghastly raddled priest (Lanzetta). And where is Gary Oldman? He gets a brief vignette as the bibulous writer John Cheever.
This intensely personal film may chime with Sorrentino’s fellow Neapolitans but has difficulty engaging others in reflecting a cherished memory of youth, time and place through the vapid story of a woman who fails to convey anything more than her own vanity. @MeredithTaylor
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