I’d heard about In the Hand of Dante coming out of the Venice Film Festival and knew it hadn’t been especially well received. At the time, though, a lot of the conversation seemed to revolve around the cast and the controversy surrounding their positions on the Israel-Palestine conflict rather than the movie itself. Now that it’s on Netflix, complete with an excellent audio description track from International Digital Center written by Stephen Christopher and narrated by Jamie Lemchek, I finally had the chance to check out Julian Schnabel’s latest film.
On paper, this thing should be incredible. It’s produced by Martin Scorsese, who also appears in the film, and the cast is absolutely stacked. Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, John Malkovich, Jason Momoa, Al Pacino, Sabrina Impacciatore, and Scorsese himself. It’s hard to assemble a lineup much stronger than that.
So I honestly don’t know what went wrong, because this movie just isn’t good.My favorite parts I think were unintentionally funny, like the son of the mob boss picking off people who keep encroaching on his home. Like, this is supposed to be organized crime. Wouldn’t these people figure things out a bit better?
What’s especially disappointing is that Julian Schnabel is a genuinely talented director. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Before Night Falls, Basquiat, and At Eternity’s Gate are all strong films, and many of them explore artists and the creative process. In the Hand of Dante is trying to do something similar, but it gets lost in its own self-importance. It spends a lot of time talking about the dangers of editing art and how if you stare at any work long enough you’ll eventually find something wrong with it. That’s certainly an interesting idea, but this isn’t the movie to make that argument with because it desperately needed more editing.
The script is full of clumsy, stilted dialogue that’s difficult even for a cast this talented to sell. Oscar Isaac does everything he can with the material, but he’s saddled with a role that never quite comes together. He plays Nick in the modern storyline, while also portraying Dante Alighieri in the historical sections. Gal Gadot and Gerard Butler similarly play characters across different timelines, something Schnabel has said was completely intentional. His idea seems to be that these people could exist across different eras, but I’m not really sure what that choice adds to the story beyond making it more confusing. Like, for example, while Oscar Isaac arguably plays similar characters, Butler does not. Then you have the oddity of Gadot playing the love interest across time, like Oscar Issac, regardless of who he is will be fated to find and fall in love with her.
The movie is also surprisingly violent, with people dying left and right alongside some very strange monologues. Gerard Butler gets one particularly uncomfortable speech that made me actively dislike his character. Ironically, he’s probably doing the biggest performance in the movie, but because the character is so unpleasant, it’s difficult to appreciate what he’s trying to accomplish.
I also think some of the criticism aimed at Gal Gadot’s performance has been unfair. Her character simply isn’t asked to do very much. She’s essentially Nick’s love interest, and the script mostly asks her to stand there and look beautiful. There aren’t any emotionally demanding scenes or showcase moments. She honestly had more to do in Snow White than she does here.
Jason Momoa is probably the strangest casting decision. Every acting choice he’s making, combined with the vocal accent he’s attempting, just never clicks. Thankfully, he’s not in the film all that much. The same goes for Al Pacino, who only appears for a few minutes, and Martin Scorsese, whose role is spread across a handful of brief scenes. John Malkovich, meanwhile, is exactly what you’d expect. If you and your friends were doing your best John Malkovich impression, that’s basically what he’s delivers here.
The plot itself is actually pretty simple. It’s about discovering a manuscript connected to Dante and selling it on the black market for a fortune. Somehow, though, that relatively straightforward premise stretches to well over two and a half hours without ever finding its rhythm. It never settles into a groove. Instead, it feels like a collection of interesting ideas that never fully connect into a satisfying film.
That’s what makes this so disappointing. Julian Schnabel is better than this. This cast is better than this. Everything surrounding the movie suggests it should have been something special, but it just never comes together. It almost feels like Schnabel is speaking through Oscar Isaac’s character when he dismisses critics by suggesting they’ll always find something wrong with a piece of art if they look long enough. My response to that is pretty simple. I didn’t need to spend hours analyzing this movie to find its problems. I started noticing them within the first ten minutes. This isn’t a film that slowly falls apart under scrutiny. It falls apart on its own.
In the Hand of Dante is ultimately a disappointment on almost every level. The higher the expectations become because of the director and the cast, the harder the landing is when the movie simply falls out of Schnabel’s hand. However, the suggestion that one performance might be what ruined the film is exaggerated.
Rotten: 3.0/10
