Sorrentino Brings His Past to Life in The Hand of God

The Hand of God is writer/director Paolo Sorrentino’s most personal film to date as it recounts much of his own coming-of-age experience.

Filippo Scotti stars as Fabietto, the filmmaker’s fictionalized younger self, an awkward and introverted teenager rarely seen without headphones and discman. Sorrentino builds the first half of the film around memories of his eccentric extended family, in particular his/Fabietto’s parents, Saverio and Maria (played by frequent Sorrentino lead Toni Servillo and Teresa Saponangelo respectively). The two are goofy and seemingly inseparable, whistling sing-song notes to each other like veritable lovebirds. No relationship is without its challenges, however, and they suffer through a dark period, but ultimately nothing can tear them apart.

Fabietto has no friends and instead finds comfort and belonging with his family. They’re dysfunctional, messy and can be downright cruel, and yet it works. Fabietto is also infatuated with his aunt Patrizia (Luisa Ranieri), who sunbathes naked in front of the family and struggles with mental health as she and her abusive husband try to conceive. I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention Dora Romano who stars as the deliciously imposing family matriarch, a stern, aloof woman of few words introduced to us wearing a summer-defying oversized fur coat and eating a whole burrata.

Although lacking in structure, the film’s strength lies in conveying a complicated, flawed, but deeply loving family, so that when tragedy strikes we feel the gaping hole left in its place. Spoilers ahead for those unaware of Sorrentino’s tragic past, but there’s an added layer of grief to these scenes in the knowledge that Sorrentino had to recreate his parents’ deaths and his own escape for the film. Like Fabietto, Sorrentino’s parents died from carbon monoxide poisoning at their ski cabin. He would have been with them but stayed behind to attend a soccer match featuring legendary player Diego Maradona. The titular “hand of God” is a double reference to Maradona as both inadvertent saviour of Fabietto/Sorrentino, and for Maradona’s infamous goal at the 1986 World Cup in which his hand tipped the ball into the net.

Maradona plays a key role in the film despite rarely seeing him onscreen. In early scenes, Fabietto and the family obsess over the possibility that Naples might acquire the soccer star. When it happens, Maradona becomes a symbol of hope and prosperity for the city as he leads Naples to their first championship win. The city’s brightest moment brutally coincides with Fabietto’s darkest, and Sorrentino uses it to show how fate, love and loss intertwined to help shape him into the person and filmmaker he is today.

The Hand of God is visually striking; we’d expect nothing less from Sorrentino. With Daria D’Antonio on board as cinematographer, the film injects glimpses of the divine throughout. The film opens with a gorgeous aerial landscape shot of Naples nestled peacefully on the sun-drenched coast, ocean and sky blending together. Magical realism and folklore follow as we meet San Gennaro, the patron saint of Naples, and the Little Monk, a figure of Neapolitan folklore, in a decaying historic apartment lit by a broken chandelier lying gracefully on the floor.

The second half of the film drags and becomes more aimless as Fabietto feels lost without his parents. There are hardly any scenes with the extended family, and therefore there’s less humour at play (although there’s a great running gag about Fabietto’s absent sister always being in the bathroom). Instead, Fabietto becomes friends with a smuggler who promises excitement but fails to deliver, and loses his virginity to a much-older neighbour in a somewhat bizarre scene involving a bat (the mammal, not the object), a hairbrush, and Fabietto shouting his aunt Patrizia’s name in climax.

That said, the second half finally touches on Fabietto’s desire to become a filmmaker. We watch Fabietto pursue the director Capuano (Ciro Capano), who offers Fabietto some tough love about his romanticized idea of directing. It’s another nod to Sorrentino’s own path to filmmaking as Capuano hired and mentored him in real life. The end of the film provides another glimpse of the folkloric divine and the promise of Sorrentino’s bright future in filmmaking (although Fabietto’s seems far less certain).

The Hand of God won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festivaland was nominated for Best International Feature at this year’s Academy Awards. The film is currently streaming on Netflix.