A President’s Pardon
The most radical decision that a political drama can make in 2025 is to consider the interiority of elected officials. Not only does the increased alienation of the two-party systems create an opportunity to demonize those with different priorities, but the general stagnation of progress has made figureheads the most obvious candidates to lay blame upon. There’s no reason that Presidents, Prime Ministers, and other heads of state should be given any overblown sympathy, especially when there’s little chance that they’d ever face any serious repercussions for their mistakes. However, cinema has made itself less interesting in an attempt to mirror the contentious politics of the moment; what does it say about today’s political climate that the most notable president on screen this year was Harrison Ford’s Red Hulk in Captain America: Brave New World?
Paolo Sorrentino’s new drama La grazia is an attempt to reckon with the philosophical implications of proposed bills that exist in a gray zone within legal precedent and his religious beliefs. Toni Servillo, who’s starred in nearly all of Sorrentino’s films since 2001’s One Man Up, won the Venice Film Festival’s Best Actor trophy for his portrayal of the fictional Italian President Mariano De Santis. There are some comparisons that could be drawn between De Santis and Italy’s current president, Sergio Mattarella, but Servillo’s characterization is almost entirely divorced from his platform; De Santis is depicted as an eloquent, wistful character in the vein of Peter Sellers’ Chance in Being There. Although the film’s pointed in its refusal to mention specific historical context clues that might shape the audience’s outlook on De Santis’ policies, it doesn’t shy away from the debate over euthanasia, which until recently was illegal in all Italian territories.
The topic doesn’t emerge from a void; De Santis may be in the last six months of his tenure in office, but his decision is made into a public spectacle in the wake of two citizens who are arrested for murdering their partners. They’d argue that they acted compassionately in order to spare their loved ones’ suffering, but there’s nothing legally that would distinguish these cases from violent crimes. Should De Santis pardon these two defendants, he’d have taken a stand on a controversial issue that he’d intended to leave for his successor to determine. La grazia’s most insightful observation about Italian politics is the notion that De Santis would be granted time to meditate on his stance, and given the opportunity to consult his family, religious mentors, and cabinet for their personal views without being watched by the media.
Even if La grazia is an idealized version of Italy's executive branch, it’s still a stark contrast to the haphazard “walk and talk” manner in which American politics have been framed since The West Wing. Rather than snappy, Sorkin-esque exchanges between sardonic staffers, everyone within De Santis’ circle courteously delivers their opinion without fear of judgment. It may have been laborious for Sorrentino to wax poetic about the merits of respectful debate for the course of 133 minutes, but there’s an underpinning of sadness that has ensured La grazia doesn’t feel idealistic. De Santis is a widower, and still hasn’t found an appropriate way to express his grief within the company of his daughter, Dortea (Anna Ferzetti).
La grazia is an appropriately staid, modest psychological drama that’s consistent with the perspective of a middle-aged filmmaker, which is precisely why it's such an unusual change-of-pace for Sorrentino. Although his lavish productions and dreamlike imagery have often evoked comparisons to the work of Fellini, Sorrentino overindulges with excess, particularly those related to contemporary popular culture and sexual gratification. Earlier this year, Sorrentino released his contemporary reimagining of the Greek myth of Parthenope, which had all the gross-out humor and sexual gags of an American Pie sequel. The last time Sorrentino released a reflective drama about an elderly man was Youth, a film in which Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel frequently discuss their respective streams of urine.
La grazia may have not been a conscious effort on Sorrentino’s part to be conservative, but it’s refreshing that he doesn’t rely on shock value in order to entice audiences to care about difficult conversations. There isn’t a dearth of whimsy in La grazia because the film acknowledges how bizarre it’d be for an aged man to be responsible for a nation on the verge of evolution; between silent moments of contemplation, De Santis’ duties include meeting with contemporary rappers and attending Zoom meetings with astronauts on the International Space Station. Although it would’ve been a challenge for Sorrentino to say anything new about religious bureaucracy that he didn’t already explore in his brilliant, underseen HBO series The Young Pope, there’s a lively performance by Rufin Doh Zeyenouin as the savvy new head of the Catholic faith. Whether or not it's a realistic depiction of what this type of relationship would look like is superfluous; given the serious implications of La grazia’s subject material, it should be allowed to have a little fun.
La grazia is at its worst when Sorrentino’s classicalism implies nostalgia for bureaucracy. Even though the film’s point is to show the isolating space that a president might exist in, the lack of urgency in regards to his subjects is a glaring distraction. Yet, La grazia is about the complex discourse that has surrounded the simplest of questions, and how the maintenance of multiple societal roles has made De Santis’ answers needlessly complicated. When asked what his stance is on the quality of life, De Santis must respond as a president, a Catholic, a former jurist and a father. La grazia’s challenge is whether he can simply form his decision as simply a man; it may be a more honorable way to protect the values of his relatives, subjects, and clergy by treating them simply as fellow members of the human race.