Cinecittà was a major milestone in Italian cinema; the largest motion picture studio that was home to some of the most famous Italian directors, including Federico Fellini. So, when director Saverio Costanzo brings Cinecittà back to life in Finally Dawn, Fellini’s influence is deeply felt within the folds of the film, from the surreal elements woven into the plot to the effervescent sheen of the frames. But Costanzo is trying to do more than just recapture Cinecittà in the 1950s. Finally Dawn aims to dissect the dark underbelly of fame, tie in a real-life murder, present a coming-of-age saga, and frame it with Hollywood glamour to reach international audiences. Having premiered in 2023 at the Venice Film Festival, Finally Dawn is ambitious and succeeds in some respects, but ultimately misses the mark with many ideas that ring hollow once you scratch past the glitzy surface.
What Is ‘Finally Dawn’ About?

Finally Dawn opens with a tense black-and-white sequence of a young girl being saved by a soldier, but then the credits roll, marking the end of the first movie-within-a-movie. Already, it’s Costanza’s on-the-nose yet succinct way of paying homage to Italian cinema, where the screen cuts away to scenes in color of a mother and her two daughters in the theater, the former bemoaning the Post-WWII neo-realism of Italian directors throwing “all this ugly stuff in your face, as if the war wasn’t enough.” Mimosa (Rebecca Antonaci) is the younger, diminutive daughter who hides starry-eyed fascination for film and actors under a shock of mousy hair. Her sister (Sofia Panizzi) is the more conventionally attractive one and is scouted for a role as an extra at the Cinecittà, but Mimosa tags along. While her sister complies with the producers’ seedy demands to expose herself, Mimosa stands her ground and is kicked out, only to be roped back into the production as the lead’s handmaiden in this Egyptian-set film. Mimosa had caught the eye of American actress Josephine Esperanto (Lily James), who, despite her last name, cannot speak a lick of Italian. But the interest extended beyond the set, as Mimosa is whisked away to a night of debauchery, deception, and dancing with Josephine, her co-actor Sean Lockwood (Joe Keery), and her bilingual driver, Rufus Priori (Willem Dafoe). Looming over the dream-like premise that plays out almost in real-time is the death of Wilma Montesi, a real woman who worked as an extra at Cinecittà but was murdered in 1953.
‘Finally Dawn’ Loses Itself in Intrigue and Superficiality

Image Via 01 Distribution

We’ll start with the elephant in the room: the two-hour runtime. In the grand scheme of cinema, two hours isn’t overly long, but Finally Dawn packs in too many ideas without developing any of them with sufficient depth that the lingering scenes feel tedious rather than thoughtful. Sometimes, it works, like when Josephine introduces Mimosa as a Swedish poet and demands she perform in front of her filthy-rich industry friends after feeling slighted by Mimosa’s dance with Sean. It is an agonizing scene of silence, with the crowd flocking around her like she is prey, but even that overstays its welcome for a beat or two. However, barring the outrageous scenes of the actors on the set of a quasi-Egyptian film with purposefully atrocious acting, the first half of Finally Dawn is quite well-paced, hitting all the beats it needs to conjure intrigue and suspense for this dark, extravagant world. But it is that intrigue that the film fails to pan out, losing its stride within the winding corridors of party-goers and inane plot points. Finally Dawn’s main issue is that it sets up multiple moving pieces that it later neglects or undermines. There’s an inherent exploration of the pitfalls of fame and celebrity culture, where deceiving perfection causes insecurities that manifest as cruelty or the misogynistic undercurrents that belied the film industry at the time, where Mimosa acts as a blank siphon for these experiences. But it barely scratches the surface and doesn’t achieve the true gritty darkness it’s clearly aiming for. Mimosa’s coming of age is also at the center, but her decisions towards the latter part of the film feel contradictory to everything she experienced that night, as if she willingly dons the rose-tinted glasses that were stripped from her, only for them to be thrown off again. The murder gives the film a “what-if” tone, adding a sense of lurking danger that also simply never pans out with any substance.

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For all the film’s narrative contradictions, you cannot deny that Finally Dawn is visually stunning. Costanzo really does pay a beautiful tribute to Italian cinema in this regard. Between Massimo Martellotta’s soundtrack and Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s cinematography, we are truly whisked away to 1950s Rome, then to the carnival-esque underbelly of scandalous parties located right next to murder sites. Yet, it is this emphasis on stylistics that may have been pushed too far, impacting the aforementioned pacing issues and uneven narrative beats. There are bold brushstrokes of surrealism that are reminiscent of Fellini’s dream-like sentiments, and like much else in this film, these strokes work aesthetically but not in terms of narrative and theme. Finally Dawn may be dazzling, but not enough to hide the cracks beneath its sheen.
Lily James Has Scene-Stealing Moments in ‘Finally Dawn’

The most compelling scenes in Finally Dawn are when James, all dolled up as the haughty, tenacious Josephine, graces the screen. She is intoxicating. Josephine’s attitude is summed up by a partygoer’s warning to Mimosa, calling her Josephine’s “plaything for the night.” She is above everyone else, an inspiration, peering down at the masses with a delighted, wicked smile and carefully crafted barbs disguised as whimsy. But we needed more. Not only more screen time, but more from James, whose performance is addictive but doesn’t quite sustain the heights this role would benefit from. Meanwhile, Keery doesn’t feel necessarily suited to this role. Sean feels like he is supposed to exude enigmatic, suave, but ultimately phony authenticity that sweeps Mimosa off her feet, but it is undermined by Keery’s boyish charm, further disrupting the grittiness of the film’s tone. On the other hand, Antonaci delivers a decent performance as the wide-eyed Mimosa, but with the contradictions in the writing and considering she plays most of it without dialogue, Antonaci has very little to work with and cannot sustain the role through its runtime. Dafoe, however, brings an impish charm to his character, becoming the grounded point of contrast in the glamour of the environment. He is a breath of fresh air and contributes immensely to the immersive feel of the atmosphere. But, as a functional character that acts as a translator between parties, there is only so much he can do, but what he does add is comforting. Finally Dawn can be commended as a homage to Italian cinema and its effort to cater to an international stage, but it stumbles on its ability to follow through on its promises, leaving us a mesmerizing world that ultimately rings hollow. Finally Dawn is in theaters now.

Finally Dawn

Finally Dawn is ambitious, but that may be its downfall.

Release Date

February 14, 2024

Runtime

119 minutes

Director

Saverio Costanzo

Writers

Saverio Costanzo

Pros & Cons

The film is undeniably pretty and visually mesmerizing, with some sequences being very immersive.
Dafoe is a breath of fresh air that grounds and recenters the narrative.

Finally Dawn gets lost in its ideas and barely scratches the surface of what it is trying to achieve.
James delivers intoxicating scenes but struggles to maintain her performance.
Keery and Antonaci aren’t able to power through the runtime of nearly two hours.