''Dormant Beauty'' () is a 2012 Italian

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Marco Bellocchio Marco Bellocchio (; born 9 November 1939) is an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor. Life and career Born in Bobbio, near Piacenza, Marco Bellocchio had a strict Catholic upbringing – his father was a lawyer, his mother a schooltea ...

and starring Toni Servillo and Isabelle Huppert. The film was selected to compete for the

Golden Lion The Golden Lion () is the highest prize given to a film at the Venice Film Festival. The prize was introduced in 1949 by the organizing committee and is regarded as one of the film industry's most prestigious and distinguished prizes. In 1970, a ...

at the 69th Venice International Film Festival. For this film Maya Sansa won the David di Donatello for Best Supporting Actress.

Plot

The film revolves around the true story of

Eluana Englaro Eluana Englaro (25 November 1970 – 9 February 2009) was an Italian woman from Lecco who entered a persistent vegetative state on 18 January 1992, following a car accident, and subsequently became the focus of a court battle between supporters a ...

, a girl felt into an irreversible

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to Nociception, respond normally to Pain, painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal Circadian rhythm, sleep-wake cycle and does not initiate ...

in 1992 following a car accident and deemed incurable. After long years of struggle, her parents opted to euthanize her, asking the authorization to the competent authority and obtaining it in 2009. The

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

and some political parties during the

Berlusconi IV Cabinet The fourth Berlusconi government was the 60th Cabinet (government), government of Politics of Italy, Italy, in office from 8 May 2008 to 16 November 2011. It was the fourth government led by Silvio Berlusconi, who then became the longest-serving ...

ruthlessly attacked them. Eluana is never shown in the film, but images of television programs and newspapers mentioning her case are constantly in the background reminding the audience about her presence. The plot features several stories chained to themselves and to the themes of life and death. Uliano is a Member of the Parliament elected for

Forza Italia (FI; ) was a centre-right liberal-conservative political party in Italy, with Christian democratic,Chiara Moroni, , Carocci, Rome 2008 liberalOreste Massari, ''I partiti politici nelle democrazie contempoiranee'', Laterza, Rome-Bari 2004 (esp ...

who refuses to align himself with the party and plans to vote against a bill that will make euthanasia illegal; his daughter Maria joins an anti-euthanasia Christian prayer group in front of Eluana's hospital, but then she falls in love with Roberto, an activist for the opposite pro-euthanasia group whose brother Pipino suffers from

bipolar disorder Bipolar disorder (BD), previously known as manic depression, is a mental disorder characterized by periods of Depression (mood), depression and periods of abnormally elevated Mood (psychology), mood that each last from days to weeks, and in ...

. A great French actress referred as the "Divine Mother" is married to an Italian actor, but since when their daughter Rosa has felt into a coma she stopped caring about her husband, son and work, spending her whole time praying for her health. Rossa is a young woman addicted to heroin with

suicidal tendencies Suicidal Tendencies is an American crossover thrash band formed in 1980 in Venice, California, by vocalist Mike Muir. The band has undergone various lineup changes, with Muir as the only remaining original member. Their current lineup includes ...

saved and eventually persuaded to live by Pallido, a doctor who felt in love with her.

Cast

* Toni Servillo as Uliano Beffardi *

Alba Rohrwacher Alba Caterina Rohrwacher (, ; born 27 February 1979) is an Italian-German actress. Early life Alba Rohrwacher was born in Florence to a German father and an Italian mother. From the age of 17 to 21 she studied medicine, intending to be a doctor ...

as Maria * Isabelle Huppert as Divina Madre * Maya Sansa as Rossa * Michele Riondino as Roberto * Gianmarco Tognazzi as Divina Madre's husband *

Roberto Herlitzka Roberto Herlitzka (2 October 1937 – 31 July 2024) was an Italian theatre and film actor. He has appeared in 38 films since 1973. In 2004 he won the David di Donatello for Best Supporting Actor and Nastro d'Argento for Best Actor for his role i ...

as Psychiatrist senator

Reception

Critical response

''Dormant Beauty'' has an approval rating of 81% on

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website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, based on 26 reviews, and an average rating of 6.8/10. The website's critical consensus states: "As complex and compelling a work as its ripped-from-the-headlines storyline deserves, Dormant Beauty serves as a delightfully thorny testament to director Marco Bellocchio and his talented cast".

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

assigned the film a weighted average score of 72 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Awards and nominations

* Brian Award at the 69th Venice International Film Festival.

References

External links

* 2012 films 2012 drama films Italian drama films 2010s Italian-language films Films directed by Marco Bellocchio French drama films Films about euthanasia 2010s French films 2010s Italian films Italian-language French films Cattleya films {{2010s-France-drama-film-stub