“Beauty is like war. It opens doors.”
So says famed author John Cheever (Gary Oldman) to the titular lead of Parthenope (pronounced like “Penelope” but in your best Mario voice), played with unending and effortless charisma by Celeste Dalla Porta. She’s an astonishing beauty, with an acerbic wit to match, capable of stopping anyone — man or woman, gay or straight — dead in their path. Not a soul on this planet could resist but to take a look at Parthenope as she passes, and if she’s willing to give you even a second of her time, you may be hopelessly in her snare for the rest of yours. No, she’s not the type of beauty whose humanity trickles away as she becomes increasingly intoxicated by her God-given power to woo, but she so steadfastly refuses to be put into a box that her whole existence, as forthright as her words may be, is ultimately a puzzle to anyone and everyone, perhaps even to herself.
Writer/director Paolo Sorrentino is a storyteller obsessed with the concepts of youth and beauty (so much so that he made movies called Youth and The Great Beauty), and how the combination of these randomly assigned forces can prove more consequential than gravity itself. But in the case of Parthenope, this study of alchemy is a secondary concern. By treating us to a large, long, often deliriously sleepy tale that spans decades, even the oldest and least physically attractive among us will relate to the film’s central idea: the things we ultimately connect to in life are rarely the things we planned.
At just under 2.5 hours, Parthenope is a heck of a lot of movie, and for the most part its length is earned. Not necessarily due to the film being so densely packed with material, but because the craft is so impeccable, and the tone is so breezy, that it’s an experience in cinematic hypnosis. I would like to mill about in late ‘60s Italy smoking cigarettes and drinking wine and eating scallops while somehow not gaining an ounce of weight, a build up of tar on my lungs, or a mole that my dermatologist should probably look at. I would like to be the heir apparent to a gigantic business that runs itself. I would like to lounge about while reading heady philosophy texts and then dancing the night away in a courtyard lit entirely by lanterns.
I would like to be able to go to a beach that isn’t filled with as many people as dogs, and as many dogs as discarded hypodermic needles.
Just kidding. I hate the beach. But you catch my drift.
Parthenope depicts a truly idyllic life, and one that our heroine could easily disappear into, benefiting from her “pretty privilege,” to use modern parlance. Cheever, who rejects Parthenope’s request for a nighttime walk on account of not wanting to steal even one second of her youth, encourages her to use her beauty for gain, but admire the writer as she may, she just can’t bring herself to do it. Parthenope exists moment to moment, but also has plans to pursue an education/career in anthropology. She tries acting, she travels, she has a lot of sex with a lot of people, but all at her own discretion. And while she lives her life strictly on her own terms, the world around her reacts, sometimes unfairly.
Films like Parthenope are often described as dream-like, but in this case the film feels less like a child of slumber and more like a tapestry woven of half-forgotten memories. This works well in the moment, but when I turn my critical eye toward the material, some measure of scatter becomes apparent. I suspect that a solid 20 minutes could be shaved out of the film’s more egregious excesses of flightiness, but I also suspect a second viewing will bring that number down to 10. Or maybe none at all.
You probably sense that I’m having a hard time writing about the film in a scholarly sense, and you’d be correct. I see this as a strength (of the film, not me — I am a weak man), because this film is less about the story and more about the experience of watching it. I could talk about how the cinematography by Daria D’Antonion makes every moment look like a painting with a deep focus that highlights intense detail at all distances. I could talk about how the eclectic soundtrack is so diverse that it ran my subconscious through a wide emotional gamut with seemingly little effort. I could laud the performances, which vary from quietly cool to rambunctious and colorful. I could spoil an aspect of the film’s third act for which I’ve already prepared a meme that is burning a hole in my digital pocket.
I could do a lot of things, but I am who I am so instead I’ll just share this: I entered the theater and immediately made a joke to my fellow critics that we were all about to get horny together. And yes, this is an undeniably sexy, sexual film. But when the movie ended, I was not the primal, hang-tongued, howling wolf of titillation I expected to become. Instead, I found my body permeated by a warm, lovely, much-needed feeling of melancholy. As I get older and the gifts of youth (wonder, energy, my knees’ ability to function properly) fade away, I realize that few of the things I love are things I intended to love. Conversely, plenty of the things I set out to love are now things I’m wholly unmoved by. Life has never stopped surprising me with its ability to give and take in ways that defy the plans of even the most fastidious man or woman. It’s those surprise obsessions which have manifested — those people, places, and things that have found their way to me without having been sought — that I love more than I ever thought I even had the capacity for.
I, for example, did not expect to develop a tic where I can’t stop saying Parthenope out loud while touching my fingertips to my thumbs. But I’ll tell ya what: I love it. Now that’s a spicy meat-a-ball!
Written by Paolo Sorrentino
Directed by Paolo Sorrentino
Starring Celeste Dalla Porta, Stefania Sandrelli, Gary Oldman, Peppe Lanzetta
Rated R, 136 minutes
