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I became a playwright in 1996, having been an avid theatregoer throughout my life (averaging around 120 plays a year – watching, not writing!) I semi-retired from my day job shortly thereafter and for the next 25 years I worked only part-time, allowing me time to write. I ventured briefly into the world of television and wrote a couple of screenplays, although this pretty much came to nothing, except for TAPS making a short film of one of my scripts starring (a virtually unknown) Benedict Cumberbatch and Georgia Mackenzie, which was cool, and sufficient to get me BAFTA membership. Since the pandemic, theatre in the UK has never really found its way back to what it used to be, and so my attention has drifted more towards film. I am now fully retired from my day job and whilst I still visit the theatre two or three times a month, I now watch upwards of 500 films a year (crazy, but true!) Since I watch so many films and can write, I decided to create a blog – it seemed a very 21st-Century thing to do.
REVIEW: La Grazia ★★★★☆

REVIEW: La Grazia ★★★★☆

La Grazia is a 2025 Italian drama film produced, written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino. It had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in August, was shown at the London Festival in October, and went on general release in the UK on Friday, 20 March.

‘La Grazia’ is a pun: in translation to English, it could mean Divine Grace or Legal Pardon or Elegance – and Sorrentino uses it to mean all three in this remarkable return to form following the rather ’marmite’ Parthenope just under a year ago.

Mariano De Santis (Toni Servillo), a staunch Catholic and experienced lawyer, enters his final six-month period as president of Italy (known as his Semestre Bianco or white semester). He is conflicted about whether or not he should sign into law a bill legalising euthanasia: “if I sign I am a murderer, if I do not, I am a torturer”. He is under great pressure to sign, not least from his daughter Dorotea (Anna Ferzetti), a government lawyer and principal presidential advisor who has drafted much of the bill. At the same time, he must consider the pardon petitions of two individuals who are in prison for murdering their spouses.

De Santis is clearly a deep thinker, indeed his nickname is reinforced concrete, suggesting a certain permanence or, perhaps, intransigence. The film is gently-paced, allowing us to get to know the President properly: we are able to follow his thought processes as he considers the bill and the two pardons, as well as dealing with his own personal demons.

This is a film about one man, and yet all the supporting roles are so well written and performed that they leave you feeling you have spent much more time with these characters than you really have. I was particularly taken with head-of-security Colonel Massimo Labaro (Orlando Cinque), lifelong friend Coco Valori (Milvia Marigliano), and army chief General Lanfranco Mare (Giuseppe Gaiani). However, this is about one man, and Servillo is wonderful in the role (he won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor in Venice): he is every inch the ‘elegance’ in the film’s title.

La Grazia is a very good film indeed – thoughtful and full of the style and grace that have been a trademark of Sorrentino’s films over the years. I have no hesitation in commending this film to the house.

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