Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
"Loro", in two parts, is a period movie that chronicles, as a fiction story, events likely happened in Italy (or even made up) between 2006 and 2010. "Loro" wants to suggest in portraits and glimps, through a composite constellation of characters, a moment in history, now definitively ended, which can be described in a very summary picture of the events as amoral, decadent but extraordinarily alive. Additionally, "Loro" wishes to tell the story of some Italians, fresh and ancient people at the same time: souls from a modern imaginary Purgatory who, moved by heterogeneous intents like ambition, admiration, affection, curiosity, personal interests, establish to try and orbit around the walking Paradise that is the man named Silvio Berlusconi.
Loro 1 is a visually sumptuous Sorrentino character study orbiting the gravitational pull of Berlusconi without quite reaching him yet. The cinematography is typically Sorrentino-gorgeous — baroque, sensuous, and morally loaded — while Toni Servillo's transformation into Berlusconi is a commanding acting achievement. The plot in this first part functions more as a mosaic of decadence than a cohesive narrative, which suits the film's intent but leaves it feeling fragmentary and occasionally unfocused. Novelty is solid but somewhat constrained by Sorrentino's own established playbook (The Great Beauty, Youth), making the aesthetic feel familiar to his fans. The ending of Part 1, as a deliberate cliffhanger/incomplete act, is structurally unsatisfying on its own terms, designed to feed into Part 2 rather than stand alone.