We bet that most people outside of Europe who haven’t studied Italian history don’t really know how violent the efforts to unify the Italian peninsula in the 1860s was. We didn’t really know much about it, either. A drama about the time period of that revolution could have been a good opportunity to find out more. But does The Leopard, a new drama on Netflix, accomplish that feat or just push viewers away?
THE LEOPARD: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: “APRIL, 1860.” As a carriage rides towards Palermo on a coastal road, we read text that explains that the House of Bourbon has ruled Sicily for 100 years, but rebels looking to unify Italy are making their way down to the island from the northern part of the region, led by a general named Garibaldi.
The Gist: In Palermo, rioters loyal to Garibaldi have been wreaking havoc, causing a curfew to be implemented. But when Don Fabrizio Corbera, Prince of Salina (Kim Rossi Stuart), aka “The Leopard”, comes through, the police open the barricades. He’s going to a local convent where his daughter Concetta (Benedetta Porcaroli) is staying; he needs to bring her out because members of families like theirs, who are loyal to the Bourbons, are the most threatened by the rioters.
The person that Concetta most wants to see is her cousin Tancredi (Saul Nanni), for whom she has feelings that go beyond just being cousins. While Tancredi has been accepted by Corbera as if he was his own, Tancredi still goes off to fight with the revolutionaries loyal to Garibaldi. Concetta asks him to write her often to tell her he’s fine. He does just that, with short letters that basically say he’s fine and nothing else.
But when the letters stop, Concetta tells her father what Tancredi has been up to. When The Leopard gets to Palermo, he sees that Tancredi has been captured, and the local general that’s loyal to the Bourbons wants to execute him to make an example out of him. This being Sicily, though, everyone has their price, and the one that The Leopard has to pay to keep his nephew from being shot is a steep one.
Tancredi, however, isn’t interested in staying at the Corbera estate; he wants to join Garibaldi’s loyalists. As much as he wants to stay with Concetta in her opulent life, he knows there’s more for him out there, including the prospect of helping to unite and industrialize Sicily with the rest of Italy.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Leopard has a similar feel to other historical dramas, like The Gilded Age. There was also a 1963 film based on the same story.
Our Take: Based on the novel The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the scope of The Leopard is sprawling, trying to encapsulate the battle to unify Italy in the story of one aristocratic family. Moreover, it’s about Don Fabrizio Corbera’s efforts to keep his family’s fortune intact as the revolution makes its way to Sicily.
We’re sure that the machinations that The Leopard has to make in order to keep his riches, including marrying Tancredi off to Angelica Sedara (Deva Cassel), the scion of an influential family, will make The Leopard interesting eventually. But the first episode of the series, written by Benji Walters and Richard Warlow, moves slowly and throws too many unnecessary characters at viewers, given what the story really is.
In essence, the story is about Don Fabrizio, Tancredi and Concetta. Anyone else seems superfluous to the story, essentially a group of well-dressed people who, for the most part, seem to be so insulated from what’s going on that they’d rather play piano and gush over the brioche rolls at dinner than anything else. One member of the family, Paolo, seems to be the only one who doesn’t understand why Tancredi is rejecting all of the family’s generosity to fight for the other side. But by the end of the first episode, we can see the wheels turning in Don Fabrizio’s head. If he forces Tancredi to stay, his nephew will just resent him. But if he lets him go, and the revolution is successful, he can use that connection to his advantage.
It’s a difficulty a lot of costume dramas have: They can try to be sexy and fast-moving or they can be more reverent and move at a snail’s pace. It seems that the producers of The Leopard have chosen the latter tack.
Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.
Parting Shot: As Tancredi joins a group awaiting Garibaldi’s arrival, Concetta asks her father, “What if he dies?” Don Fabrizio replies, “He won’t.”
Sleeper Star: No one besides the three stars really stands out.
Most Pilot-y Line: The firing squad scene is disturbing, but in a way we don’t want to mention here. But it has to do with who the Bourbon loyalists line up against the wall to get shot.
Our Call: SKIP IT. Let’s just get to the point (finally): The Leopard is boring, with a large ensemble that blends into the background, except for the three main characters. It’s definitely a show about a part of history most people outside Europe know little about, and the show’s dullness will make it hard for people to connect to that story.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Leopard’ On Netflix, About A Sicilian Aristocrat Who Schemes To Keep His Family’s Position In The Face Of Revolution appeared first on Decider.
