In his latest film, “Parthenope,” Oscar-winning filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino (2013’s “The Great Beauty”) casts a sensual spell that you never want to leave. It’s a maddeningly gorgeous decades-spanning paean to the devastating beauty of a winsome Italian ingenue named Parthenope (a luminous Celeste Dalla Porta) and that temperamental and enticing city of Naples.
Sorrentino’s silky sleek yet rather empty cipher is alluring, puzzling and even quite funny, whether that’s always its maker’s intention or not. It’s also hindered, even hobbled, by its unwelcome surreal outbursts that make its messaging rather murky. But oh, does Sorrentino know how to apply liberal splashes of visual lushness to this pretty fashion plate of a movie that’s perfumed like one of those ads in a magazine.
He’s aided in basking in all this prettiness with the seductive cinematography from Daria D’Antonio and expert costuming from Carlo Poggioli. The sexiness inherent in the actors also contributes in making us swoon and gawk at the abundance of eye candy on display.
Even the camera surrenders itself to all the loveliness, but is most intensely in love with the wealthy, brainy but none too deep character of Parthenope (named after a mythological character), and, by extension, actress Celeste Dalla Porta. She’s a beauty, but her character is only skin deep.
Parthenope reaches a goddess status early in life and dilly-dallies at the family’s sun-kissed sprawling estate near the water. She saunters about in the most stunning and revealing outfits and breezes through her high-thread-count world, arousing the attentions of men and women alike. All that beauty, though, carries with it a burdensome price — mostly due to the reactions from those who want to possess her, and think she’s dull-witted.
In the process of discovering that beauty comes with price, our heroine draws into her turnstiling realm bigger-than-life characters: a masked acting coach Flora Malva (Isabella Ferrari), a Sophia Loren-like diva of an actress named Greta Cool (Luisa Ranieri) who eviscerates Naples at a paid-for event, the celebrated but inebriated author John Cheever (Gary Oldman, again stealing scenes) and a sinful bishop (Peppe Lanzetta) with a penchant for red bikini briefs — channeling his red-hot papal desires and giving us a scene you might wish you could unsee after witnessing it.
Even the natural elements — water, air, earth and fire — want to romp with dear Parthenope. Water is a big focal point in Sorrentino’s film, given Parthenope was born right dab in the Bay of Naples in 1950, and it’s that element the director attaches thematically to birth, death and even the mode of travel for the weirdest, most magnificent carriage/bed you’ll ever see. (Don’t scour eBay for it; I already did that for you.)
One fascinating character entirely besotted with Parthenope is her sensitive but troubled brother Raimondo (Daniele Rienzo). They have a very, very intimate relationship that leads to family finger pointing.
The best way to enjoy Sorrentino’s vision is to perhaps ponder the existentialism about all the imagery. It conveys one provocative world, which leads to a scene of two naked young lovers being urged to have sex on a very public bed while onlookers observe them, and another involving a professor/mentor flinging open a door to something very bizarre behind it. All unforgettable and bizarre sights that left me scratching my head and wondering if it was time to wrap this one up.
Some of what Sorrentino renders is achingly beautiful and borders on the profound. But too often the film fails to coalesce beyond obvious, surface-deep sentiments about the advantages and disadvantages of beauty and one filmmaker’s conflicted tug-of-war emotions about Naples.
When he strives for more than that, the filmmaker behind the 2021 personal drama “Hand of God” and the series “The Young Pope” with Jude Law often settles for the absurd — a la Fellini. Those attempts lack the thematic tissue to connect the dots and border often on the snicker-worthy silly.
Set all that aside, though, and you’re in for a never-boring transcendent cinematic experience that sizzles way hotter than “Challengers” and is as fascinating as it is endlessly frustrating and rigorously audacious. It wishes like an overly ardent lover to be a lush, sweeping experience, but winds up a flawed beauty accessorized in window-dressing that fails to stir the soul.
‘PARTHENOPE’
2½ stars out of 4
Rating: R (nudity, sex, intense themes)
Starring: Celeste Dalla Porta, Isabella Ferrari, Daniele Rienzo, Gary Oldman
Director/writer: Paolo Sorrentino
Running time: 2 hours, 16 minutes
When & where: Opens Feb. 7 at select theaters