‘Gloria!’ Review: Upbeat Italian Convent Drama Gives 18th-Century Baroque Standards a Girl-Power Pop Makeover
variety.comGuy Lodge Film Critic With the possible exception of “Tora! Tora! Tora!,” any film with an exclamation point in the title should by rights be a spangly, full-scale musical.
A frothy tale of warring classical music sensibilities in a Venetian girls’ refuge, “Gloria!” stops short of complete commitment to that rule — but it’s when it fully suspends reality for all-singing, all-stamping choral ecstasy that Margherita Vicario‘s uneven debut is most exciting.
Elsewhere, this mixture of starchy costume drama and contemporary, youth-oriented feminist uplift is hampered by hoarily formulaic scripting, with stock characters and plot points that don’t match up with Vicario’s more elevated artistic ambitions.
Still, it’s hard to take against the film’s eager energy, which is sure to win over festival audiences — beginning at Berlin, where it nabbed a somewhat generous Competition berth — and home crowds in Italy.
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