Gary Oldman Joins Paolo Sorrentino’s Next Feature (and Another Love Letter to Naples)

Gary Oldman is set to join the next film from Paolo Sorrentino.

Announced in Venice, where Sorrentino is something of a favored son having premiered several features there, the two Oscar winners will team up for the as-yet-untitled project, which is being produced by Lorezeno Miele for The Apartment Pictures, part of Fremantle (The Hollywood Reporter‘s international producer of the year) and behind Sorrentino’s last film, 2021’s Venice-bowing The Hand of God). Other producers include Anthony Vaccarello for Saint Laurent, Sorrentino for Numero 10 and Ardavan Safaee for Pathe.

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The feature — Sorrentino’s 10th — takes him to his native Naples again, telling the story of a woman named Partenope “who bears the name of her city but is neither siren nor myth.”

In Greek mythology, Parthenope is a siren who casts herself into the sea after failing to entice Odysseus with her songs, washing up on a rock foundation where Naples lies.

In Sorrentino’s film, however, she’s a woman born in 1950 whose “long life embodies the full repertoire of human existence: youth’s lightheartedness and its demise, classical beauty and its inexorable permutations, pointless and impossible loves, stale flirtations and dizzying passion, nighttime kisses on Capri, flashes of joy and persistent suffering, real and invented fathers, endings, and new beginnings.”

The director continues: “Together with a host of other characters: men and women observed and loved, their waves of melancholy and disappointment, their impatience and despair, their anguish at never again laughing at an elegant man who trips and falls on a city street. All of this is accompanied by the passage of time, that most faithful of boyfriends. And by Naples, who charms and enchants, who shouts and laughs, and who knows just how to hurt you.”

Alongside Oldman (who is, presumably, not playing Partenope), also joining the cast are Nello Mascia and Biagio Izzo, alongside the previously announced Celeste Dalla Porta, Silvia Degrandi, Isabella Ferrari, Lorenzo Gleijeses, Peppe Lanzetta, Silvio Orlando, Luisa Ranieri, Stefania Sandrelli and Alfonso Santagata.

The film, shot between Naples and Capri, is an Italian-French co-production written and directed by Sorrentino. Douglas Urbanski serves as executive producer.

Sales will be handled by UTA and Fremantle.

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