The Hand of God

The title refers both to God’s unfathomable works on earth and the earth-shaking goal that Napoli player Diego Maradona scored for Argentina at the 1986 World Cup (it was a handball). We are in the Naples of director Paolo Sorrentino’s youth, a chaotic, crime-plagued city obsessed with Maradona, where 15-year-old Fabietto (Filippo Scotti)—Sorrentino’s alter ego—lives with his large and unruly family, including father Saverio (Sorrentino regular Toni Servillo); and mother Maria (Teresa Saponangelo). Events both quotidian (Fabietto losing his virginity) and horrific (no spoilers here!) lead Fabietto to commit to a life in—what else?—the cinema…

‘There’s no mistaking the hand of Paolo Sorrentino in his latest work, although this time the bravura signature has a rather more gentle flourish. His ninth feature film is unmistakeably his most personal, and directly autobiographical… There is a decidedly cruel streak in much of the comedy, although Sorrentino conveys it as being authentically grounded in the culture he depicts. This contributes to a dynamically abrasive quality that offsets the film’s gentler aspects, resulting in one of cinema’s least sentimental family memoirs since Fellini’s own… Visually, the film is as rich as ever…’—Jonathan Romney, Screen