A widowed Italian president faces moral crises over euthanasia legislation and pardoning killers while grappling with his late wife’s infidelity during his final months in office.

Paolo Sorrentino is one of my favourite directors and almost always makes interesting films, and ‘La Grazia’ sees him reunite with regular collaborator Toni Servillo. Servillo plays Mariano De Santis, an ageing Italian president in the final months of his term, navigating the ‘semestre bianco’ or ‘white semester’, a period in Italian politics where his time in office is winding down but the decisions he faces carry significant weight.

Those decisions centre on whether to pardon two individuals convicted of murdering their partners, and whether to sign a bill legalising euthanasia, placing De Santis in a position where there are no easy answers. Over the course of the film, he seeks counsel from a range of figures, including fellow politicians, his daughter and even the Pope, as he tries to find a path through a situation where the moral lines are hard to decipher.

At its core, this is a thoughtful moral drama, exploring questions around justice, faith and responsibility, with Servillo once again superb. He plays De Santis as a fundamentally decent man, caught between his personal beliefs, his religious faith and a genuine desire to do the right thing, and the performance carries much of the film’s weight. Sorrentino reins himself in slightly compared to some of his more extravagant work, but his trademark style is still present, with bursts of music and choreographed sequences cutting across the more serious material.

I found ‘La Grazia’ to be a moving and deeply poignant film, one that takes its time to sit with difficult questions rather than forcing clear answers. It may be more restrained than some of Sorrentino’s previous work, but it still feels very much in his voice, and stands as a worthy addition to his body of work.

Rating: 4/5

Directed By: Paolo Sorrentino

Starring: Toni Servillo, Anna Ferzetti, Orlando Cinque, Milvia Marigliano, Giuseppe Gaiani, Giovanna Guida, Simone Colombari and Massimo Venturiello

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt34886821/