Parthenope

A baby girl is born directly into the salt spray of the Mediterranean, delivered not onto a hospital gurney but into the hull of a wooden boat bobbing near the Neapolitan coast. From that first gasp of air in 1950, Parthenope is destined to be a siren—not the feathered bird-woman of Homeric legend, but a woman whose sheer, overwhelming beauty acts as a gravitational pull that she neither asked for nor particularly enjoys. It’s the kind of opening that only Paolo Sorrentino would attempt: lush, slightly ridiculous, and so visually intoxicating that you’re drunk on the cinematography before the first line of dialogue even hits the air.

I watched this on a Tuesday afternoon while wearing a pair of wool socks that had developed a suspiciously large hole in the big toe, making me feel significantly less elegant than anyone on screen. But that’s the Sorrentino effect. He makes the world feel like a sprawling, sun-drenched museum, and then he spends two hours asking if we’re actually allowed to touch the art.

The Burden of Being the View

In an era where we’re saturated with "content" designed to be scrolled past, Parthenope is a defiant, $32-million argument for the big screen. It follows its titular heroine, played as a young woman by the luminous newcomer Celeste Dalla Porta, as she wanders through the decades in Naples. She’s an aspiring anthropology student, a daughter of privilege, and a woman who is constantly being told what she represents by the men who stare at her.

Celeste Dalla Porta handles this with a fascinating, stony intelligence. She doesn't play Parthenope as a victim of the male gaze; she plays her as a witness to it. She spends much of the film with a cigarette dangling from her lips, watching the world lose its mind over her beauty while she tries to find something—anything—substantive to hold onto. It is a film that treats a woman’s face with the same religious intensity usually reserved for a weeping statue of the Virgin Mary. There are moments where the camera lingers so long on a profile or a reflection that I felt like I was being dared to look away. I didn't.

A City of Miracles and Misery

Sorrentino’s Naples isn't the gritty, crime-ridden labyrinth of Gomorrah. This is a city of high-society decadence, crumbling palazzos, and bizarre religious theater. There’s a scene involving a "miracle" and a bishop (played with oily charisma by Peppe Lanzetta) that is so grotesque and strangely beautiful it felt like a fever dream I had after eating too much calamari.

The film thrives in these weirder corners. Luisa Ranieri shows up as Greta Cool, a fading actress whose face is perpetually wrapped in bandages after plastic surgery—a tragic, screaming counterpoint to Parthenope’s effortless youth. Then there’s Silvio Orlando as Devoto Marotta, the anthropology professor who becomes the film's moral North Star. Their relationship is the heart of the movie; he is the only person who looks at her and sees a brain instead of a trophy. Their scenes together provide a necessary anchor to a plot that otherwise drifts like a boat with a broken motor.

The Oldman of the Sea

Perhaps the most unexpected detour is a melancholy cameo by Gary Oldman, playing the real-life American novelist John Cheever. Draped in a bathrobe and nursing a permanent glass of gin, Oldman’s Cheever is a man drowning in his own talent and sadness. It’s a brief performance, but it’s haunting. He represents the "cost" mentioned in the film’s synopsis—the idea that being a legend, or a "myth," is a lonely, dehydrating business.

However, your mileage may vary on the pacing. In the current landscape of cinema, where even dramas feel pressured to have the kinetic energy of a Marvel trailer, Parthenope is unashamedly slow. It’s a film of sighs, long walks, and philosophical questions asked over expensive wine. At times, Sorrentino is so enamored with his own visual poetry that he forgets to give his characters anything to do besides look wistfully at the horizon. It’s indulgent, certainly, but in a marketplace of assembly-line streaming movies, there’s something refreshing about a filmmaker who is this committed to his own brand of beautiful self-indulgence.

Behind the Siren’s Song

Interestingly, this was a massive production for a non-English language drama, and the box office hasn't exactly been kind. It’s a "prestige" film that arrived in a post-pandemic world where audiences are increasingly picky about what they’ll leave the house for. It’s a shame, because Daria D'Antonio’s cinematography is staggering. She captures the Neapolitan light in a way that makes the air look like gold dust.

Whether the film "works" for you depends entirely on whether you’re willing to go where Sorrentino leads. It’s not a traditional biopic; it’s a biography of a feeling. By the time Stefania Sandrelli takes over the role as the older Parthenope, the film has moved from the heat of youth into the cool shadows of memory. It’s a transition that felt earned, even if the road there was a bit winding.

Ultimately, Parthenope is a gorgeous, flawed, and deeply romantic experiment. It captures the specific ache of realizing that your youth was a performance you didn't know you were giving until the curtains started to close. It might be twenty minutes too long and a bit too high on its own supply, but I’d rather watch a director fail while reaching for the stars than succeed by playing it safe in the dirt. Go for the visuals, stay for the melancholy, and maybe bring a scarf—it gets chilly in those Neapolitan shadows.