‘Parthenope’: A Movie About the Most Beautiful Woman in the World

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.

In 1950 Naples, Parthenope is born in the ocean shortly after a family friend known as the Commander (Alfonso Santagata) brings an ornate carriage imported from Versailles to their home to be used as a bed. Eighteen years later, that girl materializes out of the water in a bikini as a young goddess whose sexiness is so intense that Sandrino (Dario Aita) doesn’t know what to do with himself.

Staring directly into the camera, Dalla Porta performs a seduction on both her male companion and the audience, and it’s clear that Sorrentino is also under her spell. To him, Parthenope is a beguiling knockout of endless fascination. For the remainder of his film, he imagines her as the most alluring woman of all time, whether she’s barely concealed in a shimmering silver dress under a moonlit sky, dropping her cover-up to reveal herself to a gardener (who can only respond by smiling and offering her a flower), or wearing a magnificent outfit of glittering stones and bejeweled crosses.

Living at her waterfront home, Parthenope attracts the attention of every man in her vicinity, including her brother Raimondo (Daniele Rienzo), who resembles an Italian Timothée Chalamet and whose affection toward his sibling is downright incestuous. Still, Parthenope refuses to portray Raimondo’s feelings as creepy because it thinks they’re just the inevitable consequence of being around such an unparalleled hottie.

Parthenope’s come-hither eyes are like tractor beams, and she’s so self-possessed that she hardly bats an eyelash when a man approaches her on the beach to ask when she might be available to share a picnic with his employer, who’s circling overhead in a helicopter. She casually brushes off this invite, and when she later acquiesces to the get-together, she acts nonchalantly uninterested in sex with him (it’s just the death of desire, she says), and doesn’t care when he insults her and storms off.

Everybody loves Parthenope, and not simply because of her elegance and eroticism. Parthenope has a sorrowful heart, as evidenced by her fondness for the works of John Cheever.

When she actually runs into the oft-drunk author (Gary Oldman), she immediately takes to him. He does likewise, admitting that he’d fall madly for her if he wasn’t gay, and refusing to let her join him on a long, sad nocturnal walk because he can’t stand the thought of stealing even a moment of her youth. With blonde hair and an ascot around his neck, Oldman strikes a sloshed, debauched pose, yet he’s merely another of the material’s pawns, intended primarily to convey that Parthenope has a melancholic soul.

Sorrentino decorates his action with recurring leitmotifs—be it Raimondo falling backwards or men questioning Parthenope about what she’s thinking—which contribute to the film’s musical quality. Many of his images are enchanting, and at least one shot (which slowly tumbles over the crystal-clear blue ocean) is memorably haunting.

Too frequently, though, he prioritizes splendor over substance. Parthenope isn’t a real person so much as an idea: She’s the embodiment of Naples in all its complicated glory. And his episodic narrative makes her a generally passive participant in her own story, which involves a brief detour into acting that results in a steamy encounter with a facially disfigured agent and a sit-down with a celebrity named Greta Cool (Luisa Ranieri) who knows that prettiness is fleeting and who amusingly decries her hometown for being poor, whiny, and backwards.

Parthenope is about Parthenope’s irresistible exquisiteness, and that’s about it. Impulsively departing a ship with a stranger, she watches a young couple consummate their union (and the merger of their families) in front of increasingly horny onlookers.

At school where she’s studying anthropology, she develops a close relationship with Professor Marotta (Silvio Orlando), who’s sternness doesn’t put her off and whose son is afflicted with a most unusual condition. In these and other sequences, Sorrentino attempts to carve out a uniquely quixotic space between the real and the unreal.

Occasionally, he locates it, as when Parthenope visits a Bishop (Peppe Lanzetta) whom Marotta warns is “the Devil”—and who apparently aspires to be the next Pope—and not only learns about the San Gennaro miracle but actively causes it. Yet with scant connective tissue holding these vignettes together, the film feels aimless, superficial.

Tragedies, losses, and memories of happier times gone by all lend Parthenope a wistfulness that’s intended to enhance its protagonist’s magnetism, and Dalla Porta is nothing if not fetching. Nonetheless, the reason everyone wonders what’s going on inside her head is that she’s mysterious to a fault; for all her mesmeric smiles and enticing moves, she’s more of a classical ideal than a three-dimensional human being.

Accordingly, a late leap forward to 2023 (with Parthenope now played by Stefania Sandrelli) rings hollow, since she fundamentally lacks an inner life, much less one that might be nostalgically reconsidered. Sorrentino is a born romantic, and his idolization of Parthenope is an extension of his fondness for Naples. However, he fails to capture a real sense of the city, using it largely as a backdrop for dazzling portraits of Dalla Porta.

No matter its poetic pronouncements, there’s nothing profound about this tale of a jaw-dropper whose beauty, per Cheever, disrupts everything she does and everyone she meets. Like its title character, Parthenope is certainly nice to look at, but its charms are skin deep.