PARTHENOPE – Review by Pam Grady
A coach fit for Cinderella’s ball, floating on a barge across the Bay of Naples, is the first image in Paolo Sorrentino’s latest absurd jewel box. It is 1950 and the coach is to serve as a bed for the baby to be named Parthenope. But while Cinderella is the clear reference, Sleeping Beauty might be more to the point for when the drama jumps ahead 18 years to the Swinging ‘60s, the gorgeous young creature desired my men and women alike resembles nothing so much as a sleepwalker through life. Perhaps the moral of the story is that Sorrentino, whose previous work includes The Great Beauty, The Hand of God and the miniseries “The Young Pope, shouldn’t write for women.
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