Review: A Neapolitan rhapsody in 'The Hand of God'

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Sorrentino's Oscar-winning masterpiece, “The Great Beauty,” too, was crowded with awe and sensation as it rambled around Rome In “The Hand of God,” which Netflix opens in theaters Wednesday and begins streaming Dec. 15, the director has turned south to his hometown for an autobiographical film based on his 1980s childhood. “The Hand of God,” winner of the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival and Italy's Oscar submission, is a more personal detour for the 51-year-old Sorrentino. Both Patrizia and Maradona are like phenomena in Fabietto's life, which here seems like a cartoonish picaresque until a tragedy jolts him and “The Hand of God” into a different realm. We've had of late quite a few portraits of filmmakers as young people — Joanna Hogg's ravishing two-part “The Souvenir,” Kenneth Branagh's “Belfast.” For Sorrentino, whose surreal flourishes, particularly the “La Dolce Vita”-esque “The Great Beauty,” have drawn Fellini comparisons, this is his “Amarcord.” But autobiographical doesn't always feel like the natural mode for Sorrentino.