La Grazia

In this warm, emotional, and handsome film, Italian auteur Paolo Sorrentino reteams with actor Toni Servillo, the star of his Oscar-winning drama The Great Beauty, who delivers a tour-de-force performance as an Italian president taking stock at the end of his term. As he  reflects back on his life, he weighs his final acts, which might well determine his lasting legacy.

Servillo’s President Mariano De Santis, a former judge with an unimpeachable reputation as a man of honesty and integrity, is grappling with political decisions of great consequence in his last six months in office. Yet even as he wrestles with appropriate courses of action, Mariano finds his mind wandering to the early days of his romance with his late wife Aurora, whose infidelity 40 years earlier remains an open wound. His close friend Coco knows the identity of his wife’s lover but refuses to divulge the secret, leaving Mariano to wonder if he will ever gain closure.

With his finely wrought narratives, gorgeously detailed production design, and delight in the absurd, Sorrentino crafts a film, which, anchored by Servillo’s magnificent presence, transcends as an elegant, exhilarating, and thoughtful meditation on forgiveness and grace.