‘Enea’ Review: Super Rich Kids With Nothing but Loose Ends, Italian Style, in Pietro Castellitto’s Emptily Swaggering Youth Study
05.09.2023 - 18:27
/ variety.com
Guy Lodge Film Critic About 20 minutes pass in “Enea” before someone asks the young, handsome, splendidly attired title character what he does for a living, during which time audiences are likely to be wondering the same thing. This, to be fair, is not a negligent omission in writer-director-star Pietro Castellitto’s script, which tells us early on that Enea, the elder son of a wealthy Roman family, ostensibly manages a high-end sushi restaurant, atop an assortment of more underhand dealings.
What he actually does, however, is a question less easily answered in this slickly mounted but stultifying portrait of privilege and ennui among Italy’s silver-spoon set, which feels more empathy for its pampered, spiraling protagonist than most viewers are likely to muster. Three years ago, Castellitto premiered his directorial debut “The Predators” in Venice’s Horizons sidebar, winning the section’s screenplay prize.
A dark comedy examining social disparity in the Italian capital, it was brash and often overstated, but had a certain cocky impact — auspicious enough to see his sophomore effort promoted to the festival’s main competition. Awash in set pieces luxuriating in pricey One Percent hedonism, “Enea” builds on its predecessor in scale alone; otherwise, it’s short on ideas and wit, hammering home its points about the putrefying effects of hereditary wealth to steadily diminishing returns over a lengthy-feeling two hours.
At home, there may be some admiration for Castellitto’s derivative but sleek formal pizzazz — plainly indebted to Paolo Sorrentino at his most ostentatious — but it’s hard to see international distributors flocking. As the son of veteran actor-filmmaker Sergio Castellitto — drafted in here to play Enea’s
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