Critics reviews

Marcello’s rejection of the expositional conventions of biographical drama keeps you watching, as does the never-better Bruni Tedeschi.

Built around an all-in performance by Tedeschi, who repeatedly seems on the brink of going full Nicolas Cage but always pulls back at the last moment, Duse is an enjoyable but somewhat opaque take on an enigmatic Italian legend.

Marcello makes some bold decisions (as does his leading star, who takes the opportunity to play this beloved icon very seriously, almost to the point where the spectacle of her intense, exaggerated performance becomes absolutely essential), but he never allows the film to become unnecessarily overblown, choosing to embrace the madness rather than retreat from it, which makes an enormous difference.

The best choice made in this anti-conventional biopic written by the director in league with Letizia Russo and Guido Silei, was entrusting Valeria Bruni Tedeschi with the lead role.

Marcello doesn’t turn Duse into a martyr for her cause. Duse avoids revanchist notions similar to those that pervade fascist ideology, even if certain elements of the subject’s struggle may be righteous.

This is an exhausting way to mount a biopic, mainly because it’s hard to think of any historical personage, bar possibly Jesus, who would merit such adulation, let alone an Italian theater actress who is largely unknown outside her native country, or the rarefied arena of theater history.

Marcello himself admits in the film’s press notes that filming the theater scares him, and unfortunately it shows. “Duse” suffers for the scarcity of the pursuit that it and its inhabitants purportedly care so passionately about.

It’s an exercise the director and his co-writers don’t quite manage to pull off, but it still makes for an original, thought-provoking journey. Deeply cinematic, this is a film for historically-minded arthouse audiences who like a challenge.

The film unfolds via a series of vignettes that have a tendency to go into convoluted details, labouring every beat of meandering conversations between peripheral characters... Yet keeping the film alive throughout the muted world building is Valeria Bruni Tedeschi.

Getting a glimpse of this figure’s tragic yet absorbing life is an enthralling venture, and it mostly succeeds because of the singular performer [Tedeschi] who holds the film together at its strongest anchor.