Writer-director Paolo Sorrentino is someone I always think I am more familiar with. I have seen a few films from him, but I am missing a couple of his more celebrated features. I think I am aware of the themes that he tends to explore though. Faith and religion are sometimes a focus, but he spends more time looking at how people change as they age, how things are reframed as individuals look back (either examining their own lives or examining the lives of others), and the inherent beauty and power of things that somehow don't change as the years fly by. I'm very open to being corrected on this, but I don't think I am speaking out of turn.
Parthenope is in line with certain things I have just mentioned. Ostensibly about a beautiful young woman named Parthenope (played mainly by Celeste Dalla Porta), the tragedy interspersed throughout her life somehow keeping her on a path that ensures she keeps making others happy while struggling to fully settle her own doubts and worries. Parthenope almost feels as if she is making it her purpose to facilitate the dreams and fantasies of others, even for people she is warned away from, but maybe she knows that helping others become happy will lead to her own eventual happiness.
While I am not always won over by the words written by Sorrentino, I am absolutely in awe of his vision and the fact that he tackles some weighty and thoughtful themes with a lightness of touch that makes them much easier to digest. He's helped here by Daria D'Antonio's cinematography, but arguably more so by his cast.
Dalla Porta makes a very strong impression in what is her first film role of any real substance. Parthenope has to be a figure both placed on a pedestal and dragged down to lower levels by those wanting to help or harm her spirit, and Dalla Porta moves through the film in a way that gives her a sense of being impervious to so much of the pushing and pulling on her. Silvio Orlando, playing Professor Devoto Marotta, is similarly cool to most of the people around him, but his connection to our main character, who impresses him with her knowledge and inquisitive nature, provides a perfect balance to the whole thing. Luisa Ranieri portrays someone who could so easily be a future incarnation of Parthenope, as envied as she is beloved by those wanting something from her, and there are very good supporting turns from Dario Aita, Daniele Rienzo (not onscreen for long, but arguably the most important figure in Parthenope's life), Peppe Lanzetta, and a handful of others.
There are a few other films I could mention alongside this one, but nothing that feels exactly like it. That's a very good thing. Parthenope feels familiar at times, but remains a unique, and ultimately uplifting, experience. Much like the titular character. The worst things happen when people start to judge (themselves or others), and I suspect that at least part of the messaging from Sorrentino on this occasion is to do with casting judgments aside. It doesn't often help you, and it certainly doesn't help you to connect with, and learn from, others. Unless they're really bad people, of course. Like, say, those who use their phones in the cinema once the film has started playing. In that case, feel free to judge away.
8/10
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