Vague Visages’ Adagio review contains minor spoilers. Stefano Sollima’s 2023 Netflix movie features Pierfrancesco Favino, Toni Servillo and Valerio Mastandrea. Check out the VV home page for more film reviews, along with cast/character summaries, streaming guides and complete soundtrack song listings.

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Adagio, an Italian film about personal transformations, shares an apocalyptic feel with director Stefano Sollima’s 2018 movie Sicario: Day of the Soldado (written by Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan). In this case, however, the action primarily takes place in a singular cityscape setting (Rome), much like Sollima’s popular crime series Gomorrah (2014-21), which is mostly set in Naples. As Roman wildfires lead to constant power outages in Adagio, a young gangster (Gianmarco Franchini as Manuel) — the son of a notorious mob boss (Toni Servillo as Daytona) — colludes with a police sergeant (Adriano Giannini as Vasco) after being caught with a male prostitute. The young protagonist subsequently reaches out to a blind associate (Valerio Mastandrea as Polniuman) for help, only to be redirected to an older criminal known as “The Camel” (Pierfrancesco Favino as Cammello) — a man dying from cancer who intends to spend his last remaining days/months/years with his concerned wife (Silvia Salvatori as Silvia). Somewhat epic like Michael Mann’s Heat (1995) and political in nature like Sollima’s underrated series ZeroZeroZero (2020), Adagio executes its brutal messaging through cinematographer Paolo Carnera’s observant visual language.

On the surface, Adagio explores themes of masculinity and homosexuality. But the film is essentially a character-driven drama, one that doesn’t expect audiences to sympathize with any of the main players. Cammello — portrayed by a nearly unrecognizable Favino — doesn’t intend to harm anyone at this stage in his life, but the man’s demeanor alone suggests someone familiar with the gritty Rome underworld. Meanwhile, the police sergeant Vasco is initially presented as a loving father, but he gleefully scowls at Manuel about his sexuality before committing one of the film’s grisliest crimes. And so Adagio doesn’t ask viewers to choose their fighter, so to speak; it’s not about “relating” to the protagonists/antiheroes. Sollima, it seems, underlines the societal conditions that influence the actions of each main character as the city burns in the background. More than once in Adagio, the director cites “the end of the world” with his script, co-written by Stefano Bises. The question is this: who, if anyone, deserves a second chance?

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In Adagio, Sollima’s attention to detail and Carnera’s inquisitive camera inform viewers about the perspectives of each main player. Manuel shifts back and forth between street life and comfortable interior spaces, and there’s a poetic quality to Cammello’s scenes, whether it’s trains transporting people back and forth outside his apartment window or the way he looks at his wife, Silvia; a Roman woman who stands her own ground while making stern suggestions to her husband. Think of The Godfather (1972) and how director Francis Ford Coppola mixes the good, the bad and the ugly for his flawed characters. In Adagio’s most dramatic moments, Sollima and his cinematographer Carnera position the viewer in tight spaces, most notably during a car scene in which Servillo’s Daytona — who is seemingly “gone” due to dementia — surprises two police officers while sending a clear and direct message about his intentions.

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Elsewhere in Adagio, the filmmakers communicate the domestic realities of big, tough and presumably wealthy men by exploring small apartment spaces. Unfortunately, there’s isn’t a strong female presence in Sollima’s Netflix film, aside from the aforementioned Silvia. But Adagio’s lack of women arguably sheds even more light not on the wants and needs of each male figure. For example, Manuel isn’t necessarily looking for a ride-or-die female partner, and a detective like Vasco can’t afford to trust anyone beyond his inner circle of male colleagues. Incidentally, Adagio is very much a film about father-son dynamics, evidenced in part by the shared scenes between the adopted Manuel and the still-grieving Cammello, whose son passed away 12 years prior to the main timeline during a failed heist, one that was organized by Daytona, resulting in some perpetual anger for Favino’s slow-moving and cynical antihero.

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Scene after scene, Adagio contrasts the sacred with the profane à la the Baroque master Caravaggio. Manuel boasts about women and cocaine, but he wants genuine love, certainly from his adoptive father, Daytona. As for Cammello, he dresses like a young gangster but walks and talks like a man who anticipates Death around the corner. Again, who deserves a second chance in Adagio? And what if the answer is “nobody?” As seen in Sicario (2015) and Sollima’s 2018 sequel, some crime-riddled cities will simply devour naive residents and welcome a new group of criminals/victims into the fold. And so the beauty of a film like Adagio lies within in the nuances of character transformations. Men like Manuel and Cammello may seem destined for violent deaths, but they’re not so far gone that they’ve entirely lost their humanity.

Adagio premieres at Open Roads: New Italian Cinema at Film at Lincoln Center in New York City on June 5, 2024.

Q.V. Hough (@QVHough) is Vague Visages’ founding editor.

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