Review of 'La Grazia': Sorrentino and Servillo address the last months of a president

We should thank filmmakers who have a special artistic relationship with an actor: Akira Kurosawa with Toshiro Mifune, Martin Scorsese with Robert De Niro and, by all indications, Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone. Among them is the Italian duo of Paolo Sorrentino and star Toni Servillo, a fertile partnership that began almost 25 years ago with the director's first film (“One Man Up”) and continues with their seventh together, the political drama “La Grazia” (“Grace”).

The exercise of power seems to be a frequent backdrop for these two, with “La Grazia” – about an Italian president facing difficult decisions as his term ends – marking the third time Sorrentino has asked his favorite protagonist to be head of state, following their groundbreaking 2008 collaboration “Il Divo” (about Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti) and the 2018 Silvio Berlusconi adventure “Loro.”

The difference this time is that, while the other two films focused on real-life controversial figures, Servillo's character in “La Grazia” is fictional, but pressed to deal with controversial issues. The result is a much bleaker and more thoughtful exploration of morality in governmental authority than the elegant violence of “Il Divo” and the exploitative mischief of “Loro.”

A decade after his lush, Oscar-winning bacchanal “The Great Beauty” (starring a particularly good you-know-who), Sorrentino is no less drawn to painterly beauty or dazzling images. But there's a grayer, graver tone to the long shadows of “La Grazia,” as if the natural, engaging gravitas of Servillo playing an important man fighting planned obsolescence were the only palette Sorrentino and cinematographer Daria D'Antonio needed.

Mariano De Santis, from Servillo, has only a few months left, of course, as leader. But aside from being pushed to eat healthier and quit smoking cigarettes by his daughter Dorotea (a wonderful Anna Ferzetti), the idea of ​​ending things is not entirely figurative as this austere jurist-turned-president wanders the halls of his official Roman residence, the grand Palazzo del Quirinale, ironically contemplating his retirement.

He's a widower, for one, whose love for his late wife still runs deep enough to keep him jealous over her early infidelity with a mysterious man he's eager to identify, even as his old friend, art curator Coco (a vibrant Milvia Marigliano), remains tight-lipped about what she knows. He is also being pressured by Dorotea, a valued advisor who is also a legal expert, to consider two clemency cases for convicted marital murderers, both with circumstances that would test any arbiter of good legal judgment. And finally, although De Santis is a devout Catholic and gets along well with the Pope (Rufin Doh Zeyenouin), he is dealing with signing legislation on the right to euthanasia.

You wouldn't think a movie with such heavy themes would count as escapism. But when you consider the current headlines, a thoughtful leader approaching thorny issues from a place of psychological honesty, social integrity, and fatherly love could almost be considered a fantasy. And Sorrentino, a dedicated sensualist, allows himself some lighter touches, including, toward the end, a fanciful visual metaphor for the spirit of a burdened man that perhaps only he could get away with.

Most certainly, though, this is a director-star duo once again moving together, perhaps not as confidently as in some previous efforts, but with wise intelligence. Servillo is nothing short of magnificent, conveying a demure statesman's handling of acquired wisdom and awkward emotions (and, at one point, an interest in rap lyrics) with enough lessons in acting craft to fill one of his character's prized law tomes. The title not only describes what is sometimes elusive in governance. “La Grazia” is Servillo in every scene.