The Hand of God is a 2021 film from Italy directed by Paolo Sorrentino.
It is an autobiographical film in which Sorrentino tells a story based on his own life and family. The film opens in 1984 with Fabietto Schisa, the Sorrentino avatar, being a teenaged boy growing up in Naples. Fabietto is an awkward and mostly friendless boy, with the typical teenaged boy's hormones. In his case the hormones are focused in an unfortunate direction, towards his high-strung aunt Patrizia, who is phenomenally sexy but also emotionally erratic.
When Fabietto isn't ogling his curvaceous aunt he's watching European soccer and, specifically, the greatest soccer player in the world, Diego Maradona. Posters of Maradona decorate Fabietto's room. Not just Fabietto but the entire city of Naples is abuzz with rumors that Maradona may leave his team in Barcelona and come play for Napoli.
Meanwhile, Fabietto is part of a large, colorful family. His older brother Marchino has dreams of being an actor. His sister Daniela seemingly spends her whole life in the bathroom. His parents Maria and Saverio love each other, but she chucks him out of the house for a few days after finding out he is still seeing his old mistress.
The whimsical comedy of the film comes to a sudden, screeching halt when tragedy strikes. Suddenly Fabietto, still a teenager, has to do a lot of growing up very fast.
Tropes:
- Alone in a Crowd: Fabietto wandering around the playground of his high school in the immediate aftermath of his parents' death, looking dazed while the other boys are shooting hoops and horsing around. This is only underlined when he breaks down crying.
- Author Avatar: Fabietto for Paolo Sorrentino, whose parents actually did die when he was 16.
- Bookends: In the opening sequence Patrizia sees the "Little Monk", a mythical Neapolitan fairy creature, in a scene that she may have hallucinated. In the last scene, as he's riding the train to Rome, Fabietto sees the Little Monk at a train station.
- The Bore: Nenella's new boyfriend Aldo, who speaks with an electronic voice box. The family is out in the bay and Aldo won't stop droning on about the fine details of sifting flour to make sponge cake. Patrizia asks to see his voice box, and when he hands it to her, she takes the batteries out and throws them into the bay.
- Coming of Age Story: Fabietto starts out the story as a gawky teen, but after the tragic death of his parents (with a dash of Sex as Rite-of-Passage), he grows and matures and sets out to make a career in films.
- Did You Just Have Sex?: Something about Fabietto's manner immediately after he lost his virginity with the Baroness leads Marchetto to guess his secret.Marchetto: You got laid! You did!
- Fanservice Extra: The naked lady sunning herself on the Stromboli nude beach where Marchetto and Fabietto go for a getaway.
- Grande Dame: The Baroness Focale, a rich widow who lives in a luxurious apartment right above the Schisa family and feels entitled to summon them by rapping on her floor with a stick. She also sometimes comes into the Schisa apartment uninvited to complain about other neighbors.
- Historical Domain Character:
- Fabietto is shocked to see none other than Diego Maradona in a car. Soon after Maradona signs to play with Naples.
- Near the end Fabietto, who has decided he wants to make movies, meets Real Life film director Antonio Capuano, who tells him to stay in Naples and write stories about his amazing hometown rather than go to Rome like most film people do. (In real life Paolo Sorrentino's first screenplay was for Capuano's film The Dust of Naples.)
- Of all people, Fabietto sees Saudi billionaire oil sheik Adnan Kashoggi in Capri.
- Jabba Table Manners: Sra. Gentile, an in-law of Fabietto's Aunt Nenella. She's a rude and nasty person, who, at a family get-together, makes a spectacle of herself eating a mozzarella. Bits of cheese and watery whey fly everywhere while the rest of the family looks on in horror.
- Letting Her Hair Down: Fabietto is taken aback to come into the Baroness's room and find her in a negligee, but it becomes perfectly clear that she's up to something when unpins her Grande Dame hair and lets it down. She takes his virginity moments later.
- Life Will Kill You: Completely out of nowhere, both of Fabietto's parents are killed by a gas leak in the country house they were building.
- Naked Nutter: Aunt Patrizia takes off her swimsuit and sunbathes nude on a family outing to the beach, while the rest of the family gapes at her. It seems like it might be Shameless Fanservice Girl, but actually it's a sign that Patrizia has some serious mental problems. Later she goes to a mental hospital.
- Outgrowing the Childish Name: The Coming of Age Story theme is emphasized near the end when Antonio Capuano, the director, tells Fabietto that he should start going by his real, grownup name "Fabio".
- Running Gag: Fabietto's older sister Daniela is The Voice for most of the film, as people are always yelling at her to get out of the bathroom. When she tells Fabietto about their father's Secret Other Family, she's in the bathroom on the other side of a door. Even at their parents' funeral, Daniela is said to be in the bathroom when someone asks for her.
- Running Gag Stumbles: Daniela finally comes out of the bathroom for the one and only time at the end of the movie, crying, presumably because Fabietto is leaving for Rome.
- Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Sra. Gentile, a rude old lady who curses constantly. When Maria notes her Jabba Table Manners and how she's spilling mozzarella all over herself, Sra. Gentile says "Fuck off!"
- Secret Other Family: Maria is enraged to discover that Saverio is seeing his old mistress Sra. Villa again. Later, Daniela tells Fabietto why their father wouldn't quit his girlfriend: they have an eight-year-old son together.
- Sex as Rite-of-Passage: The Baroness looks like she must be 40 years older than Fabietto, but she seduces him anyway, not long after the tragic death of his parents. She engineered the rite of passage deliberately, saying that his next time will be with someone his age and that she seduced him so he could "look forward" from now on.
- Shout-Out: The family gets a VHS tape of Once Upon a Time in America but don't get around to watching it before Maria and Saverio die.
- Smoking Hot Sex: Lampshaded by the Baroness, who after sex with Fabrizio lights up a cigarette, hands him another, and says "Smoke this. It's the best part of sex."
- Smoking Is Glamorous: A random moment has Fabietto at a casting call for extras for a Federico Fellini movie. One of the people at the casting call is a glamorous woman in a skimpy red cocktail dress, who makes a great show out of lighting a cigarette and smoking, as Fabietto goggles at her.
- Stock Footage: Clips of Diego Maradona games, like his famous "Hand of God
" handball goal at the 1986 World Cup that provided the title for this film. - Through the Eyes of Madness: The opening scene has Patrizia just standing around at a bus station when a man in a 1920s limousine comes up and whisks her away. He takes her to a crumbling mansion where she meets the "Little Monk", a sort of legendary spirit from Neapolitan folklore. It's apparently a hallucination brought on by Patrizia's mental illness—except that Fabietto sees the Little Monk at the end of the film.
- Title Drop: The only reason that Fabietto does not die with his parents is that he stayed in town instead of going to the country house, so he could watch Maradona play on TV. When Uncle Alfredo finds this out he says "It was the hand of God! It was Him that saved you!", recalling Maradona's "hand of God" goal and also how divine Providence saved Alfredo.
- Two-Act Structure: Fabietto's parents die exactly halfway through the film, turning a whimsical portrait of a family of eccentrics into a story of grief and loss.
- Vapor Wear: In the opening scene Patrizia is wearing a thin cotton dress that strains to contain her large bosom and makes it perfectly clear she isn't wearing a bra. What's weird about the scene is that she's just standing around, waiting for a bus.
- Wardrobe Malfunction: Patrizia's already skimpy dress got torn in her fight with Franco, and slips off her shoulder, revealing one perfect breast. Both Fabietto and his father gawk in amazement, until a disgusted Maria snaps at them that Patrizia is bleeding from a punch in the nose and needs help.
- Would Hit a Girl: When Patrizia gets home late her husband Franco flies into a jealous rage and attacks her, hitting her and then chasing her around the apartment until Patrizia manages to lock herself into the bedroom and call her sister Maria.
