Cannes Film Festival, Celeste Dalla Porta, Daniele Rienzo, Dario Aita, drama, Emanuela Villagrossi, film festivals, Gary Oldman, Isabella Ferrari, Italy, Luisa Ranieri, movies, Parthenope, Peppe Lanzetta, reviews, Silvio Orlando
February 21, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Paolo Sorrentino
Italian and Neapolitan with subtitles
Culture Representation: Taking place in Naples, Italy, in 1973 and in 2023, the dramatic film “Parthenope” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: A 23-year-old woman has a strange relationship with her brother and is sexually irresistible to many people she meets while she’s an anthropology student and deciding what to do with her life.
Culture Audience: “Parthenope” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino and artsy European films that don’t have much to offer besides gorgeous locations and depictions of luxurious but empty lifestyles.
Much like the movie’s title character, “Parthenope” is pretty to look at but has a hollow personality. This Italian drama pretends to be erotic and provocative, but it is neither. Viewers might be as bored or frustrated as the movie’s shallow characters.
Written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino, “Parthenope” had its world premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival as an In Competition film eligible for the festival’s top prize: the Palme d’Or. It’s an example of a movie that most likely got into this elite festival in this prestigious category because of the director’s fame and connections, not because of the quality of the movie. If “Parthenope” had been written and directed by an unknown filmmaker, it’s doubtful that this vapid film would have been regarded as highly by people who think this is a great movie.
“Parthenope” (which take place in Naples, Italy, where movie was filmed on location) has most of the story taking place in 1973, while the last 20 minutes take place in 2023. By the time this 137-minute movie ends, you’ll see plenty of gorgeous scenery of people luxuriating near beaches with sky-blue water, or lounging around in upscale homes and hotels. However, you can get plenty of those types of visuals for free in any number of video travelogues on the Internet.
What you won’t get by the end of the movie is any sense of who any of the characters really are and what is the point of this entire story. In 1973, Parthenope di Sangro (played by Celeste Dalla Porta) is a beautiful anthropology student who attracts sexual attention almost everywhere she goes—from men, women and even her own brother Raimondo (played by Daniele Rienzo), who has been obsessed with her since they were children. A huge part of the movie is about Raimondo (her older brother) being jealous when Parthenope gets any sexual attention from other people.
This quasi-incestuous storyline is supposed to look edgy, but most of the time it looks silly because the acting is so bad. Far from being turned off by Raimondo’s obvious sexual attraction to her, Parthenope seems to encourage it. There’s a scene where Parthenope and her boyfriend Sandrino (played by Dario Aita) are slow dancing, and Raimondo joins in on the slow dance, as Parthenope embraces Raimondo like a lover. There are multiple scenes where Parthenope looks like she is about to kiss Raimondo on the lips like a lover, and then the camera quickly cuts away.
Viewers are told in the movie that Sandrino has also been in love with Parthenope since childhood. Sandrino is the son of the housekeeper who works for Parthenope’s family. Parthenope and Sandrino become lovers as adults in 1973, so expect to see Raimondo glaring and pouting in envy when he sees Parthenope and Sandrino being lovey-dovey with each other. Not much is revealed about the siblings’ family except they appear to be affluent, based on what their waterfront home looks like. Raimondo’s creepiness is excused as Raimondo being “fragile,” which is the word that someone uses to describe Raimondo in the movie.
What’s so special about Parthenope besides her beauty? Nothing. Time and time again, the movie shows that she doesn’t have a charismatic personality, impressive intellect or even the ability to pretend that she has either of those qualities. This movie is just a collection of scenes of Parthenope interacting with people and fielding or making sexual advances or flirtations. There’s not even any sexual heat or spicy sex scenes in these interactions. Everything looks so staged and fake.
Even her anthropology professor Devoto Marotta (played by Silvio Orlando) can’t seem to resist Parthenope, although he’s one of the few men in the movie who doesn’t try to have sex with her or look at her with lust. Professor Marotta, who wants to be Parthenope’s mentor, gives Parthenope perfect scores for her grades, even though the movie shows no evidence that Parthenope is smart enough to earn those grades. Showing up in class and being handed those grades doesn’t count as evidence, especially when Parthenope admits in a classroom scene that she doesn’t even know what anthropology is.
Parthenope doesn’t have the curiosity of someone who is truly interested in anthropology. Maybe that’s why the movie barely shows her being an anthropology student and mostly shows her as a young woman who wanders from upscale place to upscale place and soaks up the the attention she gets wherever she goes. Parthenope doesn’t seem to have any friends other than Sandrino, nor does she seem interested in making any friends.
The movie makes Parthenope’s restlessness a contrivance because she’s supposedly unsure about what she wants to do with her life. At a posh hotel’s restaurant, she meets famous British author John Cheever (played by Gary Oldman), who’s drunk and who heaps this compliment on her: “Are you aware of the distractions your beauty causes?” That’s enough for Parthenope to engage in a conversation with him because she’s thinking maybe she could be a writer too and John can be a valuable connection.
During this conversation, a talent agent named Lidia Rocca ([played by Emanuela Villagrossi) happens to be at a nearby table and approaches Parthenope to tell her that she’s so beautiful, she should be an actress. Lidia gives her business card to Parthenope. It doesn’t matter that this talent agent doesn’t actually know if Parthenope has acting talent because the movie is all about showing that Parthenope has strangers who are immediately attracted to her, and these strangers either (1) want to do things for Parthenope and/or (2) want Parthenope to do sexual things for them.
John gives more compliments to Parthenope, but he’s so drunk, Parthenope has to help him up to his hotel room. At one point in the hotel room, she’s stripped to nothing but a bikini bottom and wearing a towel. Just when she thinks this “seduction” is going a certain way, John confesses: “I could fall in love with you if I could prove to myself that I don’t like men.”
And faster than you can say “John’s not going to be Parthenope’s sugar daddy,” Parthenope loses interest in John and instead has to console herself by flashing her naked breasts at a teenage guy who’s pruning some of the flowers on an adjacent balcony. This guy is enthralled, of course, and when he extends his hand to give her a flower, Parthenope just giggles and runs away. Yes, it’s that type of movie.
Other people who encounter Parthenope in this superficial parade of banality are an acting coach named Flora Mallow (played by Isabella Ferrari); an unnamed cardinal/senior bishop (Peppe Lanzetta) during a ritual involving the liquefaction of San Gennaro’s blood; and a diva-like actress named Greta Cool (played by Luisa Ranieri), who is supposed to be a Sophia Loren type of movie star. Parthenope has awkward-looking encounters with all of these people, some of whom are inevitable sexual predators who abuse their power.
“Parthenope” throws in a sci-fi element in the last third of the film. It comes from out of nowhere and looks very pretentious. A storyline showing Parthenope at 73 years old (played by Stefania Sandrelli) also looks clumsily tacked-on near the end of the movie. It looks like writer/director Sorrentino struggled to come up with a way to fill up time for the movie because apparently there’s some kind of unwritten rule for “auteur” filmmakers that any movie they make has to be more than two hours long to be taken seriously as “art.”
The dialogue in “Parthenope” is simplistic and delivered in a wooden manner by most of the cast members. Dalla Porta sometimes shows some life in her acting, but in too many scenes, she has the flat personality of an artificial intelligence robot. Oscar-winning actor Oldman clearly did this movie for the salary and for the trip to Italy. It’s the only logical reason why Oldman agreed to deliver embarrassing lines such as when his character John says to Parthenope: “Beauty is like a war. It opens doors.”
At least John has an excuse: He’s supposed to be drunk when he utters such tripe. Sandrino is sober, and he’s reduced to acting like a lovesick puppy instead of being a fully formed adult human being. In an early scene in the movie, googly-eyed Sandrino asks Parthenope as he’s lurking near a window at her home: “Can I come in?” Parthenope answers, “You can circle the carriage.” She then uses the word “carriage” as a euphemism for her vagina. Who talks like that? Only people in awful movies like “Parthenope.”
After a while, “Parthenope” looks like a tiresome parody of the TV commercials that Gucci had when 1970s-obssesed Alessandro Michele used to be Gucci’s creative director. There’s a lot of “bohemian chic”/”boho chic” fashion and interior design on display. The characters move and talk as if they’ve taken too much Valium. How very 1970s but also how very boring to watch.
When troubled author John says that beauty opens doors, he didn’t mention that it depends on what types of doors can be opened with beauty. In the case of “Parthenope,” the doors that are opened lead to a vacuous pit of self-indulgent and meaningless storytelling. Anyone looking for anything more should keep the doors of “Parthenope” firmly shut by not bothering to watch this monotonous and smug vanity project.
A24 released “Parthenope” in select U.S. cinemas on February 7, 2025.