Continuing the seemingly-unstoppable trend this year of directors doing self-reflective work about their childhoods (Belfast! In theaters this Friday! Take your grandma!), Paolo Sorrentino’s The Hand of God has already soaked up award after award at whatever festivals it’s played over the last few months. It’s already been chosen as Italy’s selection for Best International Film at this year’s Oscars, where it will likely clean up, given Sorrentino’s history of Academy success — this is, after all, the man who directed The Great Beauty — but just don’t expect it to win any BAFTAs. Why? Well, it’s partially about Diego Maradona, the Argentinian soccer legend who passed away last year, whose infamous goal at the ’86 World Cup (its moniker, the “Hand of God”, gives the film its cheeky title) denied England the chance for victory. Anyhow, it looks plenty beautiful, at least from the trailer that Netflix dropped online earlier on Thursday.
Take a look:
Here’s a synopsis:
“From Academy Award-winning writer and director Paolo Sorrentino (‘The Great Beauty’), comes the story of a young man’s heartbreak and liberation in 1980s Naples, Italy. ‘The Hand of God’ follows Fabietto Schisa, an awkward Italian teen whose life and vibrant, eccentric family are suddenly upended—first by the electrifying arrival of soccer legend Diego Maradona and then by a shocking accident from which Maradona inadvertently saves Fabietto, setting his future in motion. Sorrentino returns to his hometown to tell his most personal story, a tale of fate and family, sports and cinema, love and loss.”
The Hand of God arrives in select theaters on December 3 and will become available to all Netflix subscribers on December 15.