Paolo Sorrentino has made a name for himself by telling wistful, dreamlike stories about beautiful people existing in beautiful places. His latest film, Parthenope, is not an exception to this trend. Following the life of a young woman from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, as she lives and loves around Naples, Sorrentino seems intent on investigating beauty, both what it delivers and what it costs. It’s a gorgeous piece of filmmaking, which unfortunately may be too shallow to carry the themes it is trying to grapple with.
The first shot of the title character, Parthenope (Dalla Porta), as she emerges from the sea beside her family’s villa and walks straight toward the camera. She’s in her early 20s, gorgeous, and has a local boy called Sandrino (Dario Aita) wholly captivated. She also holds sway over her brother Raimondo (Daniele Rienzo). She is deciding what to major in at school and settles on Anthropology under the tutelage of Devoto Marotta (Silvio Orlando). From there, the film follows her life as she drifts through it, at times a dedicated student, and at others living party to party with no fixed address, exploiting the weakness of the handsome older men who want to bed her.
Herein lies at least part of the problem with the film: while Dalla Porta is an effortless presence in the movie, Parthenope does not actually do all that much in the story other than drift through it, and like the siren of greek myth she’s named after, there are the ruins of heartbroken suitors all around her. This seems to stem from Sorrentino himself, and is exemplified by the way he and cinematographer Daria D’Antonio photograph her, which feels like it wants to understand a great, mysterious beauty but also very much wants simply to stare at that beauty. However, it is hard to blame them, whether it’s Dalla Porta or her young co-stars, or simply the timeless beauty of the Naples waterfront. This is not a film that anyone would call anything but a feast for the eyes; the issue is that it’s also not a feast for the soul.
Link: https://keithlovesmovies.com/2025/02/18/parthenope-review/
