Venice Review: Shia LaBeouf In Abel Ferrara’s ‘Padre Pio’

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Shia LaBeouf plays the title character in this period piece, and his face dominates the promotional material, but the latest film from the ridiculously prolific Abel Ferrara, now into his 70s, is really more of an ensemble with a supporting cast that’s near-unknown outside Italy.Padre Pio, playing in Venice Days at the Venice Film Festival, is more restrained than a normal Ferrara joint (notably 2019’s Siberia, with its talking fish), and the sober, borderline-amateur performances — apart from an unrecognizable Asia Argento as “Tall Man” — are more reminiscent of one of James Franco’s more earnest literary adaptations.

The fiery religious comment, however, is the giveaway; Ferrara may claim to be a Buddhist now, but the Catholic church has given him a rich source of material since his genre output of the 1980s.Venice Film Festival 2022 PhotosIndeed, Padre Pio himself may as well be in an entirely different film, since he spends most of his scenes in the Capuchin monastery where he has been sent to serve.

He has his demons, of course — and LaBeouf certainly brings a sense of lived experience — but the sinner’s life that has led him there is left vague.

Instead, he is shown to have the religious fervor of the newly converted, even seeming to manifest stigmata while real or imagined conversations with Satan haunt his fever dreams.Inspired by true events, Padre Pio’s appearance in the remote Italian village known as San Giovanni Rotondo coincides with the end of the First World War, and the community’s men are coming back from duty in pieces or not at all.