Fue la mano de Dios

Although I have only an embryonic understanding of Italian, I felt the rhythm and mood of the scenes allowed me to feel the soul of Naples on a cellular level.

A brilliant piece of filmmaking that totally took my breath away. This feels a lot personal because it is. Sorrentino created this film with an enormous love and you just feel it. His use of camara is outstanding, applying a lot of different techniques to give us some really beautiful shots and scenes, all of them unforgettable.

The first hour is magic. I laughed more than in most comedies I've seen. I was totally in awe with all those fascinating and lively characters. Everything feel so alive, so real. The sense of community is palpable.

The second hour is emotionally brutal. Sorrentino doesn't want to stay for a long time on overdramatic scenes. Just the necessary to tell his story. But he does it through powerful images and with a lot to say.

Even if this film is personal to the director, I believe this will feel familiar to a lot of us and that is the beauty of the cinema: a personal individual story can touch many people. Great homage to Napoli and cinema in a fantastic coming of age film.

Paolo Sorrentino's autobiographical picture follows the filmmaker's stand-in Fabietto (Filippo Scotti) as an introverted teenager in 80s era Naples. His father Saverio (the great Toni Servillo) and Mother Maria (Teresa Saponangelo; quite engaging) live a comfortable life with their other son Marchino (Marlon Joubert). There is also an extended family of colorful relatives and circle of friends. Fabietto can't help but be mesmerized by his bodacious and extroverted aunt Patrizia (Luisa Ranieri).

Sorrentino has never made a secret about his admiration for Federico Fellini and the first half of the picture is clearly designed with the Maestro's masterpiece AMARCORD in mind. Instead of the rise of Mussolini as a backdrop that ties the vignettes together, here it's the arrival of soccer great Diego Maradona who signs with Napoli and becomes a local legend (the title is in reference to his most famous play). It's when things get more serious in the second half where one sees what inspired Sorrentino to tell such a personal tale. Fabietto is faced with having to truly grow up - and, in a hurry. To decide what his future may be. The anecdotes and episodes continue to be serio-comic and filled with often over the top details. It's very much in the vein of Fellini's early classic, I VITELLONI.

Actor Scotti does very well in trying to channel Sorrentino's alter-ego. He has a natural presence and he does what he can to give the viewer a reason to care about his life. Still, Sorrentino's screenplay never quite unites all of its various threads into a cohesive narrative. We only see snippets of Fabietto's interest in cinema. Not only is Fellini mentioned, but so are other major Directors of Italian cinema such as Franco Zefferelli and Sergio Leone. But, it is local Neapolitan filmmaker Antonio Capuano (played by Ciro Capano) who gives young Fabietto some important but stern advice (Capano became a mentor to Sorrentino). It's a strong sequence, but, far too little and too late in the proceedings to anchor the movie. Just because a film is 'from the heart' doesn't mean it translates well to the screen. One has to invite in the viewer. Here, far too much of it plays like Sorrentino's personal notebook. It's vividly produced with some very fine cinematography by Daria D'Antonio and it has a lively cast, but, it never truly sings. HAND OF GOD gives the viewer some insight into Sorrentino's past, but, it never quite fully connects.

A gorgeous looking coming of age story that's worth watching for the Italian locations alone.

Paolo Sorrentino has been compared to Federico Fellini, and watching this film you can see why. This movie reminded me a lot of Fellini's "Amarcord," not necessarily in the specifics but in the general tone and vibe. "The Hand of God" flip flops between gentle comedy and domestic tragedy deftly, and in that way feels a lot like life. It's about a teenager who's forced to forge a life for himself and a place in the world when his parents are suddenly and unexpectedly removed from the picture. I've also seen it compared to "Call Me by Your Name," and I can see why, but in many ways it's a very different kind of movie from that one.

The family at the film's center should probably have disgusted me actually since they're kind of mean. In the film's first half hour they mock a woman for being fat and a man for having a speech disability. There's a smugness about them that comes from being part of an insular group where you always know you'll never be an outsider. It makes the later portion of the film that much more poignant, then, when the main character loses that protection and the big wide world becomes an insular club that excludes him.

This movie is so laid back that it would be easy to enjoy it without thinking much at all about what it's also saying. But this is one film that has both beauty and brains.

Grade: A.

It is a very difficult challenge to try to lightly tell such a personal and traumatic drama as it happens in "The hand of God". The director Sorrentino tries to face it without veils and metaphors, keeping only his very personal taste for the grotesque and decadence because- as he tries to explain several times in the film- after the personal tragedy he experienced as a teenager, he no longer likes reality: "the reality is poor". Yet reality can also be extraordinary, so much so as to generate one of the best contemporary Italian directors from a such atrocious trauma.