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‘Gloria!’ Review: Upbeat Italian Convent Drama Gives 18th-Century Baroque Standards a Girl-Power Pop Makeover
Ebullient musical sequences are the chief virtue of 'Gloria!,' a peppy but sketchily scripted directing debut from actor-musician Margherita Vicario.
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. The film uses modernized compositions, in particular, to bind its young female characters to a feminist movement still many generations ahead of them: By the time a climactic rearrangement of Vivaldi’s eponymous hymn throws in a bass drop or two, the point is perhaps a bit heavily made, but it’s mischievous enough to forgive. Bellugi gives a sufficiently winsome performance to paper over the essential dullness of her character, as Teresa pivots from noble martyr to inspiring leader, while her female peers are largely conceived in cheery girlboss shorthand.
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