È stata la mano di Dio [The Hand of God] (2021)

(Netflix Streaming, November 2022) As far as foreign-movies-in-which-writer-director-hyphenates-reflect-on-their-early-years go, The Hand of God is really not as dull as many others. Here, Paolo Sorrentino takes us back to 1980s Naples to follow a young man apparently much like himself, as he deals with a large and boisterous family, goes through a sexual awakening, cheers for Maradona, finds his way and learns the sound that motorboats do at high speed. Explicit references to Fellini (as a character auditions for one of his movies) reinforce the kinship between this film and other affectionate autobiographical pictures. But The Hand of God isn’t stuffy—crisp cinematography helps present a film that’s comic, tragic, self-reflective and often surprisingly entertaining. There are traces of self-indulgence here, but they’re inherent in the project itself—how else to make an autobiographical film? While the result may not be entirely within my wheelhouse, I can only respect the result.