Dir: Paolo Sorrentino , Italy, 2025, 133 mins
Cast: Toni Servillo, Anna Ferzetti, Massimo Venturiello, Milvia Marigliano
Review by Carol Allen
De Santis is the (fictional) president of Italy in his last six months of office. Now an elderly man, he is meditating on his years of office and his life, particularly his late wife, whom he loved deeply and who died many years earlier, shortly after, he believes, being unfaithful to him. He is haunted by that act of infidelity, which he suspects was with his lifelong friend Ugo (Massimo Venturiello), who has ambitions to be the next Presidente.
A former judge, De Santis is a stickler for the letter of the law – because of his inflexibility on this, his nickname is “Reinforced Concrete”. And before he retires De Santis has some important decisions to make. Should he give his assent to a bill making euthanasia legal, and should he give pardons to a woman who killed her abusive husband in his sleep and a man who killed his dementia patient wife?
Helping him in these legal matters is his loving daughter Dorotea (Anna Ferzetti), also a lawyer, who is impatient with his slowness in making decisions. Concerned for his health, she keeps him on a strict diet and restricts him to one cigarette a day. That doesn’t work though – he’s constantly scrounging them from his protection officer Labaro (Orlando Cinque).
Despite the meditative nature of the story, the film is full of memorably dramatic visual moments. One such concerns the president’s beloved horse Elvis, who is in the throes of dying. Labaro, who is nursing the poor creature, would have him put down, but, with the decision on the euthanasia bill hanging over him, De Santis procrastinates. Another is the state visit by the elderly Portuguese president, when the inclement weather lifts the red carpet of his official welcome into the air and knocks the poor man over. “Do I look that old”, wonders De Santis.
As the president Serillo gives a performance of power through a stillness, which speaks volumes and grips the attention. The film is also beautifully shot. Apart from those already mentioned there is a lively performance from Milvia Marigliano as his late wife’s best friend.
She, De Santis suspects, knows who his wife’s mystery lover was, but she won’t tell. And in his search for the state of grace (la grazia of the title) De Santis seeks the support of the Pope (Rufin Doh Zeyenouin), the (also fictional) first African pope since the fifth century and a delightfully good natured pontiff, who goes about his papal duties on a motor bike.
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