Parthenope (Celeste Dalla Porta) is not simply a beautiful woman—in Parthenope, she’s depicted as a diva, a vision, and a veritable Venus rising from the sea, as she does in an introduction of dazzling sensuality.
A Neapolitan stunner who turns eyes and arouses passions wherever her free-floating life takes her, Dalla Porta’s protagonist is the sultry heart of this drama from Italian auteur Paolo Sorrentino (The Hand of God, Youth), whose camera gazes at her with unabashed adoration. Casting her as a figure of radiant gorgeousness and enigmatic sadness, the film is an act of cinematic worship, and one that—however well-deserved its veneration, given its lead’s loveliness—proves one-note, as sumptuous and vapid as a commercial for Dior or Chanel’s latest fragrance.
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