Particle.news
Download on the App Store

Julian Schnabel’s In the Hand of Dante Debuts on Netflix to Largely Negative Reviews

The film’s streaming release on June 24 has focused attention on its bold visuals and disputed storytelling choices.

Overview

  • The film, adapted by Julian Schnabel from Nick Tosches’s 2002 novel, moved from a June 12 theatrical run to Netflix on June 24 and is now widely available to stream.
  • Critics have broadly judged the movie as visually ambitious but narratively muddled, with frequent complaints about its long runtime, abrupt tonal shifts, and confusing structure.
  • Reviewers singled out the decision to cast Oscar Isaac in parallel roles and to give several actors dual parts as a formal device that many found distracting or ineffective.
  • The plot uses an alleged original manuscript of Dante’s Divine Comedy as a MacGuffin to link a modern mafia-driven heist to 14th-century Dante scenes, and reviewers criticized the film’s repeated violent and coarse moments.
  • A minority of critics praised Schnabel’s art‑house touches and the Italian cinematography, but aggregator scores around the June 24 streaming debut reflect a mainly negative critical consensus.