Duse NYFF Film Review: A Fading Star

Pietro Marcello’s Duse attempts to link the final years of a once-in-a-generation artist’s life with the rise of fascism, but fails to succeed.

Marcello’s retelling of Duse’s life through his film is not a standard biography by any means. His mission was made most challenging by the lack of primary source material on the prolific actress. She was an incredibly private figure, once even being quoted as saying, “Away from the stage, I do not exist”.  

Her whole being was put into her career as an actress, a motivation that clearly served as the definitive compass for Marcello’s ambitious feature. While Duse is commendable in its earnest attempt to paint a fuller picture of the life of this mysterious artist, its execution leaves much to be desired. 

Duse opens up on Eleonora Duse (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, of The Ties That Bind Us) traveling with her companion Désirée Von Wertheimstein (Fanni Wrochna, of Mozart: Rise of a Genius) to visit Italian soldiers during the peak of World War I. Even though she hasn’t performed in over ten years, she has been brought there to raise the spirits of the troops, but it is clear that the weight of the war lies heavily on her as well. Duse is burdened with a long-lasting case of tuberculosis; it becomes evident that she is not the shining star she once was. 

Two years later, following the end of the war and an extremely close near-death experience, Duse decides it was the wake-up call she needed to bring her gift back to her craft. She sets out to reenter the world of theater with a brand new production and hopes to reignite young people’s passion for art. 

While the world of Italian theater sees this as a great return of one of their most prolific heroes, Duse’s only daughter, Enrichetta Marchetti (Noémie Merlant, of Portrait of A Lady on Fire), fiercely protests. Enrichetta begs her mother to consider giving up her life as an actress once and for all in the name of protecting her health. However, the concept of finally leaving the stage is one that Duse cannot bear to entertain. 

As Duse is attempting her big comeback, fascism is spreading rapidly, forcing people to make a definitive stance on their ideology, yanking people from the post WWI haze into the harsh light of Italy’s reality. Duse tries desperately to navigate both changing political and cultural tides as she prays her star will one day shine as it used to. 

Duse is extraordinarily ambitious in its alternative approach to telling part of Eleonora Duse’s life story. Marcello chose this specific time in her life because he felt history too often likes to focus on winners and with his story, he wanted to show a different side of Duse. In telling the story of her decline, there is something to say about the complexities it allows Duse to have as a character. 

The film paints a very vivid picture of who Duse is. She is utterly and hopelessly devoted to her craft, for better and also for worse. Her devotion inspires the younger generation of artists who seek to show truth in their performances; however, her passion falls over the line into obsession and compulsion as it’s driving her health and her relationship with her loved ones into the ground. 

In skipping her prime and focusing only on her decline, Marcello’s depiction of Duse is unique in that it allows a figure that has been noted as an inspirational person by history to be seen as a more complex being than previously considered. Unfortunately, after a while, the film’s complete overindulgence in Duse as an artist paints her more unapologetically selfish, and at times, more ignorant than inspirational. 

She actively destroys not only her own life, but the lives of those around her as she places all her bets on her artistic talents even after learning time and time again she is the only person who benefits from playing this card despite her telling the people around her to go all in on her dreams as well. The silver lining of this film is the delicate and quietly moving performance from Noémie Merlant as Duse’s daughter Enrichetta who, through the film, finally gets a sense of acknowledgment for all the hardship she put up with living under the weight of her mother’s career. 

Additionally, Marcello tries to link the decline of Duse with the rise of fascism in Italy. In theory, this link makes sense: the fall of great art in the face of oppressive authoritarianism. However, the link works primarily in concept, as its exploration is too shallow to be contemplative or truthfully thought provoking.

While not unenjoyable, Duse doesn’t make a particularly strong assertion on Eleonora Duse’s legacy in the way that you, as an audience member, want it to. The spirit of Pietro Marcello’s Duse seems to fall perfectly in line with his depiction of the great artist: full of ambition, captivated by the beauty of art, but ultimately unable to reach the full potential it deeply strives for. 

Duse had its U.S. Premiere at the New York Film Festival on October 1-11, 2025. The film will be screened at the BFI London Film Festival on October 17.