Duse, a film by Pietro Marcello

Planet Claire
Sep 24
3 min read

Duse (2025)

running time: 2h02’

directed by Pietro Marcello

screenplay by Letizia Russo, Guido Silei, Pietro Marcello

Presented just a few days ago at the 82nd Venice Film Festival, Duse by Pietro Marcello sets out as a tribute to the legendary actress Eleonora Duse, an icon of Italian and international theatre at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Yet, what ought to have been a grand fresco of Duse, “the Divine” as she was known, turns out to be an uneven, not entirely successful work.

Italian director Pietro Marcello adopts a celebratory approach but neglects to explain to uninitiated viewers why Duse deserved such reverence. Not that a didactic treatment was necessary – cinema should never be didactic – but by setting the film in the years following her retirement from the stage, without any reference or flashbacks to her years of glory, he deprives the narrative of the most vivid and significant part of the actress’s career.

Duse (1858–1924) was an immensely important and innovative actress for nineteenth-century theatre, creating a highly personal, profound style of performance that brought her international fame and success. She was also the muse of Gabriele d’Annunzio.

In the film, Marcello, true to his intelligent stylistic signature, weaves in contemporary documentary footage throughout the narrative, lending visual and historical strength: it shows a country overwhelmed by truncheons, violence and authoritarian brutality – precisely the methods of fascism’s rise and the reason for its spread.

Here Marcello regains the power of archival material he had already orchestrated so effectively in Martin Eden (2019), based on Jack London’s novel, with Luca Marinelli excellent in the lead role.

The beginning of the feature holds promise. The use of First World War toy soldiers in the opening sequence has a poetic quality. We are then transported to a real theatre of war, the military camp, where Duse and her assistant ascend in a kind of cable-cart, like figurines risen from the miniature battlefield, shrouded in mist and wrapped in dramatic cloaks.

It is a pity that, in this excursion along the boulevard of the great actress’s twilight, the energy and fascination soon dissipate, giving way to a biopic dominated by overblown acting. Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, in the role of Duse, occupies practically every frame, turning each gesture into a theatrical entrance, with excessively frequent nervous bursts of laughter and moments of torment that come across as superficial and petulant.

Bruni Tedeschi, admittedly rather capable, devours the screen. Yet more than magnetic, in this performance she seems somehow off-key: the problem is the relentless excess, which ultimately weakens the character.

The figures of Enrichetta, the diva’s neglected daughter (Noémie Merlant), and the devotion of her assistant Désirée von Wertheimstein (the Hungarian actress Fanni Wrochna), forever loyal to the diva, form the central thematic core through which the film probes the emotional relationships surrounding its protagonist.

It must be said that the major role of Eleonora Duse’s assistant is not historically documented: it is an invention of the filmmakers, brought to life with charm by Fanni Wrochna, who is flawless.

Gabriele d’Annunzio is played by Fausto Russo Alesi.

Mussolini is played by Vincenzo Pirrotta.

It is worth recalling that the diva, during the Fascist years, was elevated by the regime to the role of “symbolic mother of the Unknown Soldier fallen for the fatherland”.

For a film meant to express the genius of one of the greatest actresses of the twentieth century, the acting falls short. This cinematic Duse emerges as an ambiguous figure, incapable of arousing empathy in the viewer, suspended between egocentrism, obstinacy and impulsive rages.

The result is a heavy film, a portrait bent towards rhetoric and dependent on an unconvincing performance, not fully capable of truly illuminating the mystery and power of its subject.

There is beauty in Marcello’s evocation of Eleonora Duse’s final, melancholy years, but the film never truly captivates.

Nor does the score help: it lacks inspiration and ultimately accentuates the audience’s emotional distance.