Celeste Dalla Porta, Dario Aita and Daniele Rienzo in a scene from Parthenope.Gianni Fiorito/Mongrel Media/Supplied
- Parthenope
- Written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino
- Starring Celeste Dalla Porta, Silvio Orlando and Gary Oldman
- Classification N/A; 136 minutes
- Opens in select theatres Feb. 21
Paolo Sorrentino would like everybody to know that beautiful women can also be smart.
At least this seems to be the take-away from Parthenope, the Oscar-nominated director’s first film with a female lead and one that seeks to explore the complexities of what it means to be burdened by beauty. Named after the mythical Greek siren who’s said to have founded Naples – Sorrentino’s hometown – our titular character (Celeste Dalla Porta) makes her way through several decades as she seeks to find a place in a vapid world that’s determined to objectify, underestimate or project onto her.
On paper, this plot makes sense: Parthenope is wise beyond her years, longs to study anthropology and is constantly confronted by men and women who insist on seeing her only as a pretty face. The majority of those she meets and interacts with remark on her surprising wit and readiness with a comeback, yet the only person who truly respects her is the curmudgeonly anthropology professor (Silvio Orlando) with whom no one else can bond.
The film is, true to Sorrentino’s style, breathtakingly shot. It is a vibrant, arresting love letter to Naples complemented by the choices of costume artistic director Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent. Every shot is intentional, every close-up serves a purpose. The problem, however, is that the purpose is as surface deep as the characters Parthenope consistently reckons with. The film attempts to challenge the male gaze, but instead perpetuates it. At no point do we see the world through Parthenope’s eyes – we see it through Sorrentino’s assumption of what it’s like to be a beautiful woman, manoeuvring through a society that’s determined to consume her. This leads to an agonizingly limited frame of reference, making Parthenope a two-dimensional examination of gender, tethered to a protagonist with no real depth.
Yet this isn’t the fault of Dalla Porta. Tasked with breathing life into a character whose biggest character trait seems to be smoking cigarettes, the actor manages to make as much of a meal as possible with the crumbs she’s been given. Without saying anything she conveys an increasing cynicism and loneliness that tends to grow out of adulthood, and this turns Parthenope into a person worth rooting for instead of an elevated manic pixie dream girl.
But it’s still not enough. Sorrentino falls into the same trap as the majority of his male leads. The dialogue reminds us of Parthenope’s depth and intellectualism, but we fail to see it properly executed because we never really get to find out who she is. Her catalytic moments hinge on her interactions with men, while her brief confrontation with the tenets of Catholicism – which could have been Sorrentino’s time to shine – are interrupted by yet another emphasis on her physicality from the standpoint of another guy.
Ultimately, Parthenope fails its character by relegating her to play the siren she was named after. Instead of a criticism of beauty norms, youth culture and misogyny, it becomes a convoluted homage to all three, leaving Parthenope herself all alone by the shore.