Bombshell

Jean Harlow and Lee Tracy

Victor Fleming's Bombshell, released by MGM in 1933, is a lively comedy, part Hollywood satire, part antic screwball. Michael Sragow's excellent biography of Fleming gives a good précis of its genesis. Bombshell was based on a play about an actress beset by the perils of stardom that ends with a tragic suicide. Thankfully, Fleming and producer Hunt Stromberg wanted to shift the material's tone and concoct a vehicle for Jean Harlow who had collaborated with Fleming on Red Dust, a hit the previous year. What emerged was a boisterous comedy with the ratatat dialogue of The Front Page. Jules Furthman wrote a first draft, then frequent Fleming collaborator John Lee Mahin, a protege of Ben Hecht's, took a whack at it. When Lee Tracy replaced John Gilbert (thankfully) in the co-lead role of a wisecracking press agent, Norma Krasna was brought into beef up his part.

Tracy had played the part of Walter Burns in the smash Broadway production of The Front Page and is a perfect fit for the cynical flak monikered Space Hanlon. In general, Bombshell succeeds because it was concocted expressly for its crack cast. Mahin, who was Fleming's closest friend, knew of Clara Bow's romance with Fleming and used that for fodder. However, Bombshell is even more about Harlow and her persona. The opening montage presents Harlow under the guise of Lola Burns as a product of the star making machinery of her studio which makes her a target to be brought down by the tabloids. This was as true for Harlow as it was for Bow. Both women were perpetually linked with scandal once they attained fame. Both starlets also had family members who leeched from them along with the usual Hollywood hangers-on who inflict themselves on film icons to this day; like the Church of Scientology. These weasels bear the brunt of the satire in Bombshell including an underused Una Merkel as Lola's Gal Friday, Ted Healy as her degenerate gambler brother, and Frank Morgan as a pixillated papa. They are all excellent and superbly cast, but the amount of unrepentant drunkards (Morgan, Tracy, and Mahin were all eminent tankard-men) on this flick is startling.

Pat O'Brien, the onscreen Walter Burns of 1931, plays a director named Jim Brogan who is a virtual stand-in for Fleming. Brogan and Lola have a romantic past, just like Fleming and Bow, and are giving each other the eye through the picture. Fleming even has O'Brien and Harlow recreate the bath in a barrel sequence from Red Dust for old time's sake. How post-modern! Lola always has a bevy of potential lovers hounding her during the course of the picture including Brogan, Ivan Lebedeff as a foreign aristocrat of dubious provenance (Hollywood had a lot of those in its early days), and Franchot Tone as a preppy scion. Nobody in Bombshell, however, is who they seem. The biggest four flusher of them all is Space, Lola's true twin and nemesis. Whenever Lola is about to have a tryst or a meeting with a respectable personage, like a reporter from the Women's Home Companion or some biddies from an adoption league, Space sabotages her plans by calling in favors from the police or the press or both. All heck breaks loose in the foyer and Temperance League members brush shoulders with tipplers and other oddballs. Humanity in all its screwball glory is unleashed.

Some have cited Bombshell as the first screwball comedy, but this is not so. There are plenty of other films from this period (like Three-Cornered Moon) and even earlier, like The Coconuts, that equally fit that rubric. Certainly, the anarchic antics of the Marx brothers and other vaudevillians brought a new energy to the American sound film. I think the genre really got its start with Oscar Wilde whose work poked fun and eventually upended the conventions of the drawing room comedy. This cocking a snoot at convention and the screwball's embrace of the common man made it very audience friendly to a beleagured American in the Depression.

Every little character role in Bombshell is perfectly cast and delivered. Of those I haven't mentioned, there are plum bits by Louise Beavers, Isabel Jewell, Leonard Carey, and C. Aubrey Smith. Fleming gives the action flow, it moves but not haphazardly. A flood of innocent merriment is always threatening to burst. It is this feel of fluid spontaneity that help Harlow and Tracy give their best film performances. The picture is also greatly helped by the expert editing of Margaret Booth. She emulates the frisky rhythms Fleming finds in his choral scenes giving the film a burbling and winning perkiness. I find the last reel of the film a bit mechanical, but the self-mocking tone of the dialogue is a continuous delight. Franchot Tone manages to keep a straight face while telling Harlow, "Your heart is like a gardenia open to the sun." Harlow intones "You might get leprosy or something" with just the right amount of emphasis on the last two words. A fun flick.
  

Vie privee

Jodie Foster

Rebecca Zlotowski's Vie privée (Private Life) is a passable mystery from the French director. Jodie Foster, a Francophile since she was a tot, stars as a psychiatrist named Lillian Steiner. Dr. Steiner has a chichi psychoanalytic practice in Paris. She strikes us immediately as buttoned down and cerebral, catnip for an actor like Ms. Foster. Steiner's life unravels after the death of a beloved patient named Paula (Virginie Efira) who has committed suicide by overdosing on medication Steiner prescribed. Naturally, Paula's husband, Simon (Mathieu Amalric) resents Lillian, but his and Paula's daughter Valérie (Luàna Bajrami) convinces Lillian that there is more to her mother's death than meets the eye. Simon and Valérie both seem like slippery suspects. Lillian enlists her ex-husband Gabriel (Daniel Auteuil) for emotional and physical support as they attempt to unravel the past.

The mystery aspect of Vie privée is one of its weaker points. This is especially so because Zlotowski has Lillian's mentor (Frederik Wiseman, what a mensch) spell out the answer to the mystery about halfway through the picture. In essence: "Physician heal thyself." There is never a sense of thanatos in the film, it is a lightweight bourgeoise mystery like Agatha Christie, Only Murders in the Building, and certain Woody Allen films. The comparison to Allen is illustrative because Zlotowski sets the film firmly in the world of the Jewish intelligentsia of Paris. Unfortunately, Ms. Foster seems like a total shiksa.

The other intersection with Woody Allen is the use of a magically realistic plot device to get a strict Freudian to loosen up and live a little. In Allen's film this usually comes in the form of a ditzy but lovable shiksa, a fortune teller, or a deus ex mama. In Vie privée, it is an "Eriksonian Hypnotherapist" who helps Lillian find a portal in her unconscious. The accoutrements of her unconscious are hoary and trite cliches: stairs leading down to doors. As if the unconscious were an episode of Let's Make A Deal. Once Lillian opens a door we view a past life in which she and Paula were lovers. Sigh. The unconscious is never a mirror of existence. At best, it is a view through a glass, darkly.

What redeemed the film for me was Zlotowski's elegant framing, superb use of music, and ease with her talented cast. This is one of the most distinguished French casts I've ever seen and all the players listed above are superb. I also enjoyed the contributions of Vincent Lacoste, Noam Morgensztern, Sophie Guillemin, and Irene Jacob. The highlight of the film for me was the warm and tender rapport between Foster and Auteuil. Watching them share cigarettes in an auto while giving a post-mortem of their marriage showed me yet again what a team player Foster is as an actress. Whether she is paired with Auteuil, Anthony Hopkins or Kristin Stewart, Foster never grandstands, but engages in a true give and take that helps her partners shine. 

The Best of Sam Neill

1947-2026

    

                                               I was christened 'Nigel'. It set me back years.        

1).    Reilly, Ace of Spies                           Martin Campbell, etc               1983

2).    Peaky Blinders                                     Steven Knight                2013-2014  

3).    The Piano                                              Jane Campion                     1993 

4).    Possession                                           Andrzej Zulawski                 1981 

5).    In the Mouth of Madness                   John Carpenter                     1994

6).    Sleeping Dogs                                      Roger Donaldson               1977

7).    My Brilliant Career                            Gillian Armstrong                  1979

8).    Dead Calm                                            Philip Noyce                       1989

9).    Hunt for the Wilderpeople                   Taika Waititi                        2016 

10).  The Hunter                                          Daniel Nettheim                    2011

The versatile Kiwi had a range that extended from subtle charm to cold eyed villainy. His best role displayed his ease with both. He was one of the most self-deprecating major actors of his generation and one of the most generous. He raved about working with directors as disparate as John Carpenter and Taika Waiti. His self-abnegation came in handy when playing second fiddle to some of the leading ladies of his day. Davis, Adjani, Streep, and Hunter won the lion's share of the plaudits, so Neill's willingness to defer to his co-stars in sturdy support went unnoticed. He did work constantly, but seemed to prefer to do that in Australia or New Zealand no matter how many times Hollywood came calling. The fact that Neill never received an Oscar nomination is nothing short of scandalous.

I also appreciated Neill's efforts in The Final Conflict, Plenty, A Cry in the Dark, The Hunt for Red October, Until the End of the World, Jurassic Park, Sirens, Restoration, Children of the Revolution, Merlin, The Tudors, Old School, and Cinema Quarantino.

    

House of Strangers

Richard Conte and Susan Hayward

I was inspired to watch this chestnut after reading not one, but two, rave reviews on one of my favorite film blog sites, the Gallic Shangols. I often disagree with the (mostly) French writers, but I enjoy their lively commentary just the same. While I certainly do not think that House of Strangers is a great film, the scenario is extremely hoary, I do find it interesting enough to recommend. I think it is one of the better cast films of the era. Richard Conte (born in Jersey City), Susan Hayward (born in Brooklyn), Edward G. Robinson (born in Bucharest, but immigrated to New York at the age of ten), Luther Adler (born in New York), and Efrem Zimbalist (born in New York) are all perfectly chosen for this saga of a modern Italian-American banking titan and his family based in the lower east side of Manhattan. Robinson spouts a little too much verbal linguini at times, but he is supposed to be an over blown and operatic character, he blasts arias during family dinners, so the grandiosity is appropriate. It is one of his many little Caesars.

The film starts in 1939 with Conte a free man after seven years in the slammer. We learn that Dad (Robinson) has passed away in 1934 after Conte's brothers (Adler, Zimbalist, and Paul Valentine) had wrested control of the bank the patriarch founded. Conte also feels his brothers are responsible for his incarceration. He visits an old flame (Hayward) who still holds a torch. Then he visits the old family manse, now abandoned, and a flashback to 1932 ensues. We see Conte's brothers resentment at his favored son status and the way they chafe at their padre's domineering leadership at the bank. Conte, a lawyer, is living the life of Riley. He is engaged to one woman (Debra Paget, under utilized) while squiring another (Hayward) around town. However, his world comes tumbling down after his father is prosecuted for predatory lending. Conte takes up his defense, but ends up getting busted for jury tampering after Adler finks on his bro. After a viewing of Robinson's casket, we return to 1939 and, presumably, Conte's revenge.

Edward G. Robinson and Hayward

The scenario for House of Strangers, penned by Philip Yordan and Mankiewicz and based on Jerome Weidman's novel, is overly rhetorical and redundant. Three times we get to hear the same grievance, that Robinson has gained the world but lost his soul, recited in turn by his sons, wife, and Hayward. The details of the financial chicanery in the film are never properly explained. Mankiewicz, never the most dynamic director, is mostly content to construct static verbal tussles in drawing rooms and nightclubs. He does employ two tracking shots, but scenes containing a run on the bank and a boxing match are undynamic and visually dull. I did like his touches in a Greenwich Village checkered table speakeasy that revealed the joint's seam underbelly: a man passed out and a young chick casually brutalized by her much older date. However, such little touches are rare in this film. The film contains some location shooting, then gaining currency in Hollywood, but it is poorly integrated with the footage on the Columbia backlot.

I do think Mankiewicz deserves praise for what is Conte's finest performance. There is a delicacy and exactness to his work here that I haven't encountered anywhere else. Just see what Conte does with his fingers here, whether he is eating popcorn or examining Hayward's powder puff. There is more to this character than the numerous hood roles Conte was saddled with. Speaking of which, Bosley Crowther, in his New York Times review of the film, noted correctly that Robinson's banking career is a fig leaf for organized crime. Even after the Kefauver and McClellan hearings in the 1950s shed light on organized crime, Hollywood film producers were wary of alienating Italian-Americans. As late as 1971 when The Godfather was in production. producer Albert Ruddy did a bit of fence mending by reaching an agreement with the Italian-American Civil Rights League to not use the words mafia and Cosa Nostra in the film. The League had been masterminded as a PR move for the Mob by Joseph Colombo, then boss of one of America's five mafia families.

The Best of 2025

            

 1)    The Shrouds                                         David Cronenberg

 2)    Caught By the Tides                            Jia Zhangke

 3)    Black Bag                                             Steven Soderbergh

 4)    Weapons                                               Zach Cregger

 5)    L'Empire                                               Bruno Dumont

 6)    Miséricordia                                        Alain Guiraudie

 7)    Nouvelle Vague                                    Richard Linklater

 8)    Little Trouble Girls                              Urška Djukić

 9)    Resurrection                                          Bi Gan

10)    Cloud                                                    Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Films I Enjoyed

Vermiglio, Blue Moon,

Frankenstein, The Housemaid,

Song Sung Blue, Peter Hujar's Day,

One Battle After Another, 28 Years Later,

Hedda, Bugonia,

Reflection in a Dead Diamond, Sly Lives!,

Sentimental Value,

The Mastermind, Bring Her Back,

When Fall is Coming, Who By Fire,

The Devil and the Daylong Brothers, The Baltimorons,

L'Accident de piano,

Pavements, Grand Tour,

The History of Sound, Night Call,

Companion, The Gorge, 

Eephus, El Jockey,

Sinners, Materialists, 

My Undesirable Friends Part 1,

Afternoons of Solitude,

Holy Cow, The Ugly Stepsister,

A Minecraft Movie, Dust Bunny,

A House of Dynamite, Dracula, 

Sisu: Road to Revenge, Mickey 17,

Devo, Broken Rage,

Sirāt, Vie Privée, 

K Pop Demon Hunters, The Great Flood,

Final Destination: Bloodlines, Americana,

Hamnet, Chaos: The Manson Murders,

Below the Mendoza Line

Die My Love, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey,

If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, 

The Decedent, Islands,

Predator: Badlands, Haunters of the Silence,

Caught Stealing, Train Dreams,

Drømmer, Roofman, 

The Monkey, Eddington,

Marty Supreme, Freaky Tales

Highest 2 Lowest, The Toxic Avenger,

Nuremberg, A Working Man,

Father Mother Sister Brother,

Eden, The Smashing Machine,

F1, Knives Out 3,

Vulcanizadora, Warfare,

Becoming Led Zeppelin,

The Phoenician Scheme,

The President's Wife, Honey Don't,

Zero Day, Nobody 2,

After the Hunt, Happy Gilmore 2,

Marshmallow, 

iHostage, Match,

Fixed, The Parenting

Remains to Be Seen

The Chronology of Water, Sorry, Baby,

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, 

The Secret Agent, The Testament of Ann Lee,

It Was Just an Accident, 

Nirvanna..., No Other Choice

Pillion

                Harry Melling                      

Harry Lighton's Pillion is a good comedy of manners about a BDSM affair between a shy parking enforcement officer and a macho biker. Harry Melling plays Colin, a nebbish who still lives at home with his parents and sings with his Pa in a barbershop quartet. Across a crowded pub, he spies Ray (Alexander Skarsgård) and is instantly smitten. After they have an intimate encounter in a dark alley, the two embark on a relationship based on terms dictated by Ray. Colin is so happy to have landed the hunky Ray that he is quite willing to play slave to Ray's master, fulfilling Ray's shopping request, cooking his meals, and even licking Ray's boots upon request. Ray remakes Colin's image, shearing his curly locks, adorning him with a lock and chain, and gifting him biker togs. As in all relationships, there comes a moment when the initial rush of excitement wears off and things get real. Colin craves an emotional intimacy that Ray cannot provide. He is too emotionally closed to be able to open up to Colin. The film ends with Colin moving on to a new relationship, taking what he has learned from his unsentimental education from Ray.

Pillion is a slight film that works because it is expertly cast. Skarsgård is so lordly handsome and tersely stoic as an actor that he easily inhabits the role of the dominant Ray. Melling has the more difficult role. The film is centered on his character's perspective and Melling is often required to display his character's changing moods through his eyes and posture. He has shown already that he is expert at portraying humiliation in a number of his roles, especially his bravura turn in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. He makes Colin a very abject bottom, all to eager to embrace degradation in order to hold onto his man. Pillion confirms that Melling has emerged as the finest actor of all the Harry Potter tots.

Song Sung Blue

Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman

If you told me in the mid 1970s, when I posed as a cynical teenager, that I would one day enjoy a film about a Neil Diamond impersonator I would have been incredulous, but I found Craig Brewer's Song Sung Blue to be a well made delight. In 1975, I regarded Neil Diamond as cheesy and unhip, yet, by then, he had already composed his most lasting songs. My Neil Diamond epiphany, when I realized he could concoct a solid pop song, occurred around 1985 when I saw The Wygals cover Solitary Man in  concert. I had liked it when I first heard it when I was six in 1966 on the AM car radio, but I pushed my memory of it deep down into my subconscious. Hearing it out of its original context made me regard it anew and, lo, it was a well constructed folk-rock song. Overall, I would regard most of Neil Diamond's oeuvre as gauche and lousy. The dividing line is the Jonathan Livingston Seagull soundtrack which hit number two on the American album charts in 1973. The album is a turkey, the book and film are worse, and the rest of Diamond's career descends into complete dross. His work ethic and live shows made him the demi icon he is today. My consumer advice is to invest in compilations of his Bang and Uni years and avoid the rest like the plague. 

Diamond's niche was to merge Brill Building pop with the burgeoning singer-songwriter (aka Dylan and his acolytes) ethos; much like Carole King. Unfortunately, Diamond's taste hewed too closely to the three main pillars of American popular culture since Stephen Foster put a banjo on his knee: kitsch, schlock, and schmaltz. Certainly, some of Mr. Diamond's songs combine all three of these Yiddish adjectives. He is very much in the tradition of Jewish songwriters like Irving Berlin whose work did not look back to the old country, but embraced American culture wholeheartedly. Like Berlin, Diamond even wrote a Christmas standard, Holly Holy. Song Sung Blue captures the broad appeal of slightly cheesy tunes that people like to sing along to in a bar after a few pops. Diamond's music is a uniter of people in the film whether it be at casinos, Pearl Jam concerts, karaoke, AA meetings or Thai restaurants. Craig Brewer, in his more personal works, has tended to focus on outsiders or down and outers who unite together to create art that brings joy and pecuniary renumeration. This is as true of Song Sung Blue as it is of Hustle and Flow or Dolemite is My Name.

Brewer based his screenplay on a real life Wisconsin based couple who performed in a Neil Diamond tribute act known as Thunder and Lightning during the 1990s. Brewer had seen a documentary about the duo and has turned it into a stirring underdog tale. Now to do a tale of this sort, you need to provide a believable set-up of real life problems that the protagonists must overcome. Otherwise, you veer into predictability and schmaltz: this is the difference between the original Rocky and its sequels. The story of Thunder (Kate Hudson) and Lightning (Hugh Jackman) provides enough hardship for five films, earning its sappy moments. That said, I wasn't totally convinced that Mr. Jackman was a gritty Viet Nam vet with trauma and addiction issues. The dude is just too damn healthy looking. However, Mr. Jackman is the premier song and dance man of his generation, so he is nonpareil in the performance sequences. Ms. Hudson has received unprecedented kudos for her performance, deservedly. 

The opening sequence of Song Sung Blue, a concert of impersonators at the Wisconsin State Fair, which provides the meet cute for the protagonists, establishes the milieu of the film as on the fringes of showbiz. Life is a carnival for these folks, but there is no brass ring in store. The portrait of Thunder and Lightning's efforts to remain above water economically makes this one of the few relatively realistic films on American working class life starring a pair of Hollywood millionaires. As in Dolomite, Mr. Brewer elicits strong supporting performances that give the film background texture. I especially enjoyed the efforts of Ella Anderson, Fisher Stevens, King Princess, Michael Imperioli, and John Beckwith. I also really appreciated the editing of Song Sung Blue. Billy Fox's work gives the picture a propulsive narrative momentum. 

Best Performances of 2025

 

Best Actress

Zhao Tao                           --          Caught By the Tides

Anya Taylor-Joy               --          The Gorge

Cate Blanchett                  --          Black Bag

Sally Hawkins                  --          Bring Her Back

Diane Kruger                    --         The Shrouds

Best Actor

Ethan Hawke                    --          Blue Moon

Josh O'Connor          --  The Mastermind, The History of Sound, Knives Out 3,

Takeshi Kitano                 --          Broken Rage

Leonardo DiCaprio          --          One Battle After Another

Jackson Yee                     --           Resurrection

Best Supporting Actress

Marisa Abela                    --           Black Bag

Amy Madigan                  --           Weapons

Eszter Tompa                   --            Dracula

Chase Infiniti                   --            One Battle After Another

Tatiana Maslany              --            The Monkey

Best Supporting Actor   

Jacques Develay              --            Miséricordia

Delroy Lindo                   --            Sinners

Keith Carradine               --            The Devil and the Daylong Brothers

Benicio del Toro              --            One Battle After Another

Bobby Cannavale            --            Blue Moon

In the Hand of Dante

Oscar Isaac as Dante

Julian Schnabel's In the Hand of Dante has been derided as the biggest cinematic fiasco since Megalopolis, but, as with the Coppola flick, I found it to be intriguingly uneven. Schnabel adapted the film, along with Louise Kugelberg, from Nick Tosches' 2002 novel. The novel itself is an extremely haphazard affair, alternating from sublimity to self-indulgence. Both novel and film tell parallel stories. In one, a fictionalized Nick Tosches becomes entangled with gangsters wrangling over some original Dante manuscripts. The other, weaker half of the film gives a cursory sketch of Dante's life and spiritual quest. Oscar Isaac plays both Tosches and Dante. Some other members of the cast double up with different roles in each segment, but Schnabel does not go whole hog Wizard of Oz on us. The Dante episodes are shot in beautiful color and within the Academy aspect ratio. The modern segment is shot in widescreen black and white. Schnabel and cinematographer Roman Vasyanov present us with a series of gorgeous images, but there is little in the way of narrative coherence.

Most of this is due to the defects of Mr. Tosches' novel. In the Hand of Dante marks the point in his oeuvre where the self inflation of the author's ego starts to obscure his real gifts. I esteem Mr. Tosches as much as any modern American writer, but for an author to parallel his own life with that of Dante struck me then, and now, as artistic hubris. Furthermore, Mr Tosches' portrait of himself is comical in its self-regard. The Tosches' character in the book and film is ridiculously expert in the most varied circumstances imaginable. He's an erudite scholar (Ok, I buy that one), an irresistible lover, a stone cold killer with a gun, and a debonair man about the world. He can bust chops with wise guys or parse ancient wisdom with Italian scholars. The plot of the novel is perfunctory, but allows room for Tosches' lively and learned digressions on a host of topics. Some of the best moments in the film feature Isaac's beautiful narration of Tosches' prose. I have been a devoted reader of Tosches since he started out in music journalism. If you want to sample the best of this peerless writer, I'd recommend Country, Hellfire, Dino..., and his first novel, Cut Numbers. In the Hand of Dante ranks with Under Tiberius at the bottom of Tosches' barrel.  

Oscar Isaac as Nick Tosches

Schnabel was and is, of course, a painter, and the screen pulsates with visual beauty. I dug the gorgeous shots of the sky, but there are a number of moments when the film's audacity tumbles into ludicrous folly. The most egregious example is the vision of Gal Gadot (playing Dante's wife and Tosches' gal) as Botticelli's Venus on the half shell. It registers as inane rather than breathtaking. Luckily, Schnabel has assembled an interesting cast that helps to animate this grandiose folly. Oscar Isaac ably captures the saturnine intensity of Tosches. He is a much better fit to the role than Johnny Depp who was originally attached to the project. When Isaac as Tosches cranks up Jumping Jack Flash, ingests pills, and slurps bourbon, he is able to conjure the Dionysian fury that lurked inside of the writer. Schnabel is enough of a New Yorker to excel at casting his wise guys and goodfellas. Al Pacino has a cameo that contains his best acting of this century. John Malkovich is always an asset, especially when, as in this film, he is not taking the proceedings too seriously. Best of all is the very affecting Louis Cancelmi.

Gerard Butler

The big surprise for me of the film was how good Gerard Butler was as a Mafia hit man. Butler's brash machismo meshes perfectly with his role. He and Isaac have some good comic riffs as two sides of the same coin. Unfortunately, Schnabel neglects to shape the performances of the less talented members of his cast. Jason Momoa attempts to play a hit man with an undecipherable accent. Martin Scorsese is embarrassingly bad with a ridiculous beard affixed on him as if out of the old Steve Martin, Theodoric of York skits. Just because he is a visionary filmmaker doesn't mean Scorsese can play a visionary seer. Even worse is Gal Gadot. I spent half of the film saying to myself, "gosh, I don't remember Ana de Armas ever being this lousy" before I caught on. In the Hand of Dante is, overall, a mess, but, at least, might introduce people to a singular writer. The film also features Franco Nero, Benjamin Clementine, and Sabrina Impacciatore. In the Hand of Dante is available to stream on Netflix.