The Hand of God

The Hand of Godis filled with the kind of detail that could only have come from observation-and memory. That one family could contain so many unique and peculiar people is a reminder that truth is almost always stranger than fiction.

This is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story that doubles as a movie about the movies themselves.

The film has the vividness of memory, but also the structure of memory, which is to say no real structure at all. Visually, though, the movie is of a piece; it's Sorrentino's eye that holds it together.

... The Hand of God remains a more intimate, scaled-down picture than most of the filmmaker's oeuvre - while simultaneously elevating it to one of his best.

When the film takes a shift... and it becomes more of a standard coming of age film, it gets a lot duller.

The Hand of God is a lovely film, occasionally oddball in the best way, and astute in the way it handles tragedy and loss.

Sorrentino's coming-of-age is his most personal film yet, and a love letter to football, Maradona-era Naples and cinema.

Paolo Sorrentino’s new Netflix feature, The Hand of God, is an expectedly poetic coming-of-age drama set against a sun-kissed Neopolitan backdrop.

Sorrentino uses the coming-of-age genre to turn his own personal tragedy into a beguiling fable of family and creativity lost and found.



The Hand of God is a love letter to Italy and for Sorrentino, it becomes a form of escapism and a humane portrayal of a grief-stricken teenager as he enters a new world.