Sorrentino & Servillo on ‘La Grazia’: Power, Doubt & Their 7th Collaboration | AnotherMag
Venice, Italy – – Paolo Sorrentino and Toni Servillo, a director-actor pairing that has turn into synonymous with a distinctly Italian brand of cinematic introspection, are once again captivating audiences with their latest collaboration, La Grazia. The film, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, offers a contemplative look at power, duty, and the search for meaning in the twilight of a political career.
Servillo portrays Mariano De Santis, the fictional President of the Italian Republic in his final six months in office. Described as a serious jurist, a Catholic widower, and nicknamed “Reinforced Concrete” by his peers, De Santis grapples with weighty ethical dilemmas – including legislation on euthanasia and requests for clemency – while simultaneously confronting a deeply personal crisis stemming from a decades-old betrayal. The film isn’t a straightforward political thriller, but rather a character study steeped in the melancholic beauty that defines much of Sorrentino’s work.
This marks the seventh time Sorrentino has directed Servillo, a collaboration rooted in a shared Neapolitan upbringing and a fascination with the inner lives of powerful Italian men. ““[Sorrentino] gave me a real present [of] seven beautiful, wonderful characters,” Servillo remarked following the Venice premiere. The actor’s connection to the director is clearly profound, a creative partnership built on mutual trust and a shared artistic vision.
La Grazia arrives as Sorrentino continues to explore increasingly personal themes in his filmmaking. The director acknowledges a shift in his approach, particularly with his recent films including the semi-autobiographical The Hand of God (2021) and Parthenope. “It’s true that my past three films have seen me more involved as a human. They become more personal and more sentimental, and I let myself proceed more,” Sorrentino explained. This willingness to delve into vulnerability and emotional complexity is evident in the nuanced portrayal of De Santis, a man wrestling with both public responsibility and private regret.
The film’s central conflict revolves around De Santis’s struggle to reconcile his rigid adherence to principle with the messy realities of human fallibility. He finds himself increasingly preoccupied with achieving “lightness, clarity and absolute precision,” a pursuit that Servillo connects to the artistic process itself. “There is a famous story regarding a French writer from the 1700s [Blaise Pascal] who apologises to a friend by saying, ‘I would have liked more time to write you a shorter letter.’ This is, I think, what any artist is trying to do. Reducing, reducing, getting to the essential,” Servillo said.
Sorrentino’s vision of politics in La Grazia is one that contrasts sharply with the prevailing cynicism of contemporary political discourse. He idealizes a bygone era of thoughtful deliberation and moral conviction, lamenting the lack of “doubt and meditation” in modern leadership. “It’s very rare to encounter men of power that believe in politics almost as a religious vocation. Nowadays, decisions are no longer pondered,” he stated. De Santis embodies this lost ideal, a figure striving for integrity in a world increasingly defined by expediency.
The film too subtly engages with generational divides, contrasting De Santis’s old-world values with the perspectives of his children. A particularly striking scene involves the President rapping, a deliberate attempt by Sorrentino to juxtapose De Santis’s formality with contemporary culture. Servillo described the scene as “molto difficile,” acknowledging the director’s playful desire to challenge his established persona. This moment, along with the President’s awarding of an honor to Italian rapper Guè, underscores the film’s exploration of shifting cultural landscapes.
La Grazia is a film about letting go – of power, of illusions, and of the past. As De Santis prepares to leave office, he must confront the limitations of his own influence and the enduring weight of his personal history. Servillo emphasizes that once the film is released, the character will no longer belong to him, but to the audience. “I think this means that you’ve given something to the audience, a present, something the audience didn’t have before. Now the character lives in the minds of the people watching – provided that they want to keep it.”
La Grazia is scheduled for release in UK cinemas on .