A24 has dropped an eye-catching new trailer for Paolo Sorrentino’s “Parthenope” ahead of the U.S. release of the Oscar-winning director’s lavish love letter to his native Naples.
The U.S. trailer focuses on the film’s titular character, a young woman born in Naples – Neapolitans in Italy are also known as “Parthenopeans” – played by newcomer Celeste Dalla Porta. In his review, Variety critic Siddhant Adlakha praised Dalla Porta for delivering “a beguiling performance,” he said, as “a woman of such stunning beauty that people stop and stare.”
Adlakha praised “Parthenope” as “an exquisite treatise on cinematic beauty.” But it is also, as Sorrentino put it in an interview with Variety, a film about “missed youth” that comes as a follow-up to his autobiographical “The Hand of God” and has elicited comparisons with his 2013 love letter to Rome, “The Great Beauty,” which won the Academy Award for best international feature film.
The “Parthenope” cast also includes Gary Oldman, who plays alcoholic American novelist John Cheever; Luisa Ranieri, who played the emotionally troubled Aunt Patrizia in “Hand of God”; Italian icon Stefania Sandrelli, who was Bernardo Bertolucci’s muse; and Silvio Orlando, who played Cardinal Voiello in “The Young Pope.”
In early May, ahead of its Cannes bow, “Parthenope” was rapidly sold by Pathé all around the world, including to A24 for North America, during a 48-hour bidding frenzy. A24 now plans to release the film in a still unspecified date in the first part of 2025, while Pathé has set Jan. 8 as the French release date.
In Italy, the first country where “Parthenope” has gone into movie theaters, it’s been doing gangbuster business at the local box office. The film surpassed the €5 million ($5.3 million) mark less than two weeks after going on full release Oct. 24 and now stands at more than $7.5 million and is still going strong. These numbers have made it the country’s top local draw – excluding commercial comedies – of the year to date. “Parthenope,” which is Sorrentino’s 10th feature, could now become his personal best in terms of local returns.
“Parthenope” is a Fremantle film co-produced by its The Apartment label with France’s Pathé, in association with Sorrentino’s Numero 10 shingle, PiperFilm and Saint Laurent from Anthony Vaccarello and Logical Content Ventures, with support from Canal+ and the participation of Cine+.
Watch the trailer for “Parthenope” below.
