The Opera! (2024) ‘Rome Film Fest’ Movie Review: A Dizzying, Ambitious Twist on the Orpheus-Eurydice Myth

The Greek Orpheus-Eurydice myth is repurposed into a rollicking and plaintive musical in Paolo Gep Cucco and Davide Livermore’s The Opera! Orpheus (Valentino Buzza) sets out to take back his lover (Mariam Battistelli) from the clutches of the underworld. There’s Hotel Hades that assumes a central role and the ferrying by Charon (Vincent Cassel seemingly having a blast) as the linking mode. Orpheus is more confused and desperate than grieving the untimely loss of his beloved. He seeks reunion as well as answers. His pursuit of her spills across a skidding through varying genres and templates.

The film’s design is intently swashbuckling and fantastical. Worlds of myth and movies and musicals collide and coalesce into a dreamy, occasionally stunning hybrid. To orchestrate them convincingly demands a high degree of conviction and ease with style and sass. It’s not easy to pull it off without seeming labored in certain places. There are undoubtedly sparks of fluency and vibrance in the direction, vaulting through sweeping set pieces and musical numbers. A deeply wrought emotional logic grounds these transitions, which is why some of it does land.

What goes amiss are fine supporting characters who register some impact. But there’s no individual sparkle to the kooky, whimsical characters that Orpheus runs into in the course of his journey. They come off as slight and uninterested, despite playing into the character’s epic odyssey. These figures, fleeting as they are, provoke and tease Orpheus. The depth of his love and devotion to Eurydice is constantly tested. How much of his quest to bring her back into the world of living is anchored in truth and sincerity? These take shape through the songs, encapsulating the sprawling otherworldliness of the tale.

The most distinctive feature of The Opera! Is its super-ambitious mounting. Paolo Gep Cuoco and Davide Livermore, sharing both writing and directing duties, pull out all the stops in spinning a fantasy musical that leaps between the realm of the living and dead. Both Buzza and Battistelli pump their souls into the film, immersing themselves with sincerity and passion. They have the electric charge thrumming in the stray moments they share. It’s the kind of full-blown romance that is obviously mythic and larger than life and the film never shies away from that.

It leans into the staggering expanse this love is prepared to traverse, ready to break rules even though the rules of mortality inevitably come in the way. Despite his best efforts, there are human restrictions. Being still in the mortal flesh brings its own set of implications, which dawns on Orpheus only much later on. All his passion is not without some hesitation, a creeping up of the differences between the living and dead. Other questions are also posed. Is Eurydice even willing to return to the folds of life?

In the underworld, which is interspersed and populated with also still living, Orpheus seeks forgiveness and closure from his parents as well. The film shifts between massive, high-pitched moments where the actors hit multiple crescendos in singing and performing, and quieter, fraught reconsiderations. It’s a tough balancing act, which doesn’t always cohere especially when the film also steps into the mundane fabric.

The film does miss a few beats but the two leads are so singularly committed and deeply charismatic that they tide over some of the roughness in the transitions. The Opera! could also have benefited from trimming and expanding on the gallery of characters that move in and out of scenes, all of which have a bearing on Orpheus’ reckoning.