‘Our bond is private’: Paolo Sorrentino and Toni Servillo

“They like to smoke,” the publicist says, and a table and chairs are hurried outside onto a cramped sixth-floor balcony overlooking the sea beneath dark clouds. There is a worry the recorder will catch only the wind. The pair barely have a cigar lit before rain comes in sideways; two minutes later they trundle back indoors.

In La Grazia Toni Servillo plays Mariano De Santis, an outgoing president whose last six months in office force a series of moral choices. “The horizon is approaching,” a line in the film puts it, and De Santis, cautious and torn between Catholic faith and legal training, faces the end of a career in public service.

Sorrentino says it is not a political movie so much as an inquiry into how private life and public duty collide, and he even recalls watching a 2011 interview with Charlie Munger that warned of the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency. The two men have grown together professionally.

paolo sorrentino, toni servillo, la grazia, de santis, president, catholic faith, public duty, moral choices, charlie munger, donald trump