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The Hand of God Movie Review

The Hand of God is a 2021 Italian drama film directed by Paolo Sorrentino and starring Toni Servillo. It’s one of the worst movies of the year, which came as no surprise to me.

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In 1980s Naples, Italy, an awkward Italian teen struggles to find his place experiences heartbreak and liberation after he’s inadvertently saved from a freak accident by football legend Diego Maradona. Where to start with this one? First and foremost, I apparently hate Sorrentino as a director because I found his ‘The Great Beauty’ simply insufferable and the worst foreign Oscar winner in quite a while.

Although I didn’t hate this one as much, I still strongly disliked it. He once again tried so hard to emulate Fellini to the point that his directing is one of a copycat. The characterization is horrendous. There is nobody on this cast that I liked even in the slightest. I found the protagonist very bland and this family’s campiness and honestly nastiness really bothered me as they seemed very unlikable to me. I gravitated toward nobody, so obviously I could not care for any one of them.

The Hand of God does have a distinct look that works. The cinematography is particularly strong as are the production design, the acting performances and some memorable sets and location work. But the dialogue is very annoying, the movie has no point to it whatsoever and the mixing of the dream and the reality sequences was frustrating to follow and filled with too many disparate plot points that are incoherent as a whole. It’s, thus, another Sorrentino movie that made me wish for my two hours back.

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