Either La Grazia is Sorrentino’s best movie in a while, or it’s taken me this long to acquire a taste for the strange flavour of his work, where the studied weirdness masks the actual weirdness beneath.

Servillo gives the film its heart. His performance is never theatrical, quite the opposite. But every pause, hesitation, silence, speaks volumes about his character’s burdens. That face does its work. It’s a face that cannot bore.

La Grazia sees Sorrentino at his most sober and sincere, and his doleful muse, Servillo, at his formidable best.

In its refusal to take possession of what does not belong to him, there is a form of cinema that is strangely moving. [Full review in Spanish]