Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grazia Receives Four-Minute Ovation at Venice; Critics React

According to CinemaDrame News Agency, Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grazia opened the 82nd Venice Film Festival on Wednesday night, earning a four-minute standing ovation. Tilda Swinton and Cate Blanchett walked the red carpet at the film’s premiere.

The latest work from the Hand of God director tells the story of an aging politician who, in the final days of his career, decides to grant clemency in two cases. Toni Servillo, who has collaborated with Sorrentino on films such as Loro, Il Divo, The Hand of God, and the Oscar-winning The Great Beauty, stars in the film, alongside Anna Ferzetti.

Ahead of the premiere, Sorrentino told Variety: “Every day we read news of politicians’ decisions driven by bravado, displays of power, or complex economic calculations. Instead, I wanted to show how politicians should behave.”

Sorrentino’s previous film, Parthenope, was his seventh feature to premiere at Cannes, following The Consequences of Love (2004), Il Divo (2008, Jury Prize winner), This Must Be the Place (2011), The Great Beauty (2013), and Youth (2015).

Over the next 10 days, Venice will also screen Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt (starring Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, and Ayo Edebiri), Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly (with George Clooney and Adam Sandler), Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (starring Jacob Elordi and Oscar Isaac), and Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia (his latest collaboration with Emma Stone).

Italian actress and comedian Emanuela Fanelli joked during the opening ceremony: “If these films are screening here, it’s because Cannes didn’t want them.”

So far, La Grazia holds an 86% score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 14 reviews.

• The Guardian awarded four stars, noting that Sorrentino “has rediscovered his sense of place, his understated humor, and his gift for creating surreal, rapturous images.” The review called the film “a wintry, beautiful work, and a pleasing return to form after the oddly humorless disappointment of Parthenope.”
• The Playlist gave the film a B, describing it as “a vivid embodiment of Sorrentino’s charms, though not necessarily his greatest achievement. Playful when it wants to be, contemplative when it needs to be.”
• Film Stage observed that the film carries Sorrentino’s “visual signature”: “Fans of The Great Beauty may find themselves enjoying an artful, contemplative drama that, while not entirely piercing, remains engaging.”
• The Wrap wrote: “The magic of the film is that Paolo Sorrentino makes a persuasive case for doubt being beautiful.”
• The Times noted: “At first slow and sometimes difficult, but gradually and seductively it seeps into you, until shaking it off becomes impossible.”