Martin Eden (2019)

Directed by Pietro Marcello. Starring Luca Marinelli, Jessica Cressy, Carlo Cecchi, Vincenzo Nemolato, Denise Sardisco, Marco Leonardi, Carmen Pommella, Pietro Ragusa, Elisabetta Valgoi, Autilia Ranieri, Savino Paparella.

Visually creative but barely coherent film is so enthralled by its tableau of prettified images that it neglects to find a compelling throughline for the life and times of its disreputable working-class hero, a smorgasbord of elusive inspiration, political folly, intoxicated romance, misguided idealism, and more. Marinelli gives a robust, rounded performance inhabiting the evasive character of Martin Eden; the eponymous proletarian may not always make sense in the grand scheme, but there are intriguing angles for him to explore in a variety of scenes. Yet because Martin inspires such limited sympathy and curiosity over the course of this expansive but diffuse epic, the final shot evokes almost no emotional resonance or intellectual profundity. In fact, vague disinterest is such that many of the most remarkably pleasurable moments are the archival footage inserts of dancers, sinking ships, etc., providing brief electrical charges that his intellectual concepts and literary struggles lack. In his sophomore feature film directing effort, Marcello co-scripted with Maurizio Braucci, liberally based on the book by Jack London.

61/100