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Art history is full of works that continue to inspire other works of art even centuries after they were created. Dante and his monumental work The Divine Comedy, the subject of this piece, are among them. This epic text, which has influenced countless literary works across the centuries, is now the direct subject of a film: In the Hand of Dante.
Screened out of competition at the 82nd Venice Film Festival, the film aims to tell a story that connects Dante‘s The Divine Comedy with the contemporary criminal underworld. Those unfamiliar with director Julian Schnabel will notice, after even a brief look at his filmography, that he is a filmmaker especially interested in biographical narratives. In films such as Basquiat (1996), Before Night Falls (2000), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), and At Eternity’s Gate (2018), he often brings the inner worlds and existential struggles of real people to the screen. Seen from that angle, it makes sense that the same director would want to tell a story built around Dante.
A Difficult Book-to-Film Adaptation Equation
In the Hand of Dante is adapted from the 2002 novel of the same name by American journalist Nick Tosches. I have not read the novel, but after watching the film I did a bit of research. From what I gathered in that short time, the novel apparently blends historical fiction with metafiction, a postmodern mode that constantly reminds the reader that what they are reading is a constructed fiction. It was not difficult for me to place this in my head, because the film builds its own narrative with almost the same technique.
I may not have read the novel, but the fact that the novel’s author and the film’s protagonist are the same person inevitably pushed me to look into Nick Tosches. As a writer, Nick Tosches was known throughout his journalistic career for his pieces on rock music, American popular culture, and organized crime. From that perspective, his novel In the Hand of Dante can be called his most experimental work.
Since there is only so much I can say about a novel I have not read, it is more accurate to continue with the film. In terms of plot structure, the film is split in two. On one side, there is Dante in the 14th century, in the process of writing The Divine Comedy; on the other, there is Nick Tosches in 2001, yes, the author of the novel from which the film is adapted. At first glance, it is noticeable that Nick’s story is told in black and white, while Dante‘s story is rendered in color. I should note that I connect this to Nick’s world being more explicitly a world of “crime.”
Although I have not read the novel, the reason I wanted to research it for a while after the film was this chain of confusion. The intermingling of multiple “Nicks” and the attempt to integrate the criminal underworld with Dante inside a single construction naturally made me curious after the film.
Lives Paralleled Across Centuries
The film begins in present-day New York, when a copy of The Divine Comedy, believed to have been written in Dante’s own hand, falls into the hands of the mafia. The person whose opinion is sought to authenticate the manuscript is Nick Tosches. Before long, our main character Nick finds himself inside an increasingly complex and dangerous journey through organized crime, religious secrets, and personal perversions.
As I mentioned in the previous section, the film is built around two different time periods. At first, these two periods may seem unrelated, but as the film progresses it is possible to catch certain parallels between them. The most striking aspect of the film is the way art, faith, violence, and the desire to seek truth appear as impulses that remain unchanged across centuries.
In the black-and-white story, the one set relatively closer to our present, Nick’s gradual movement into the center of murders, betrayals, and power struggles after being asked to determine whether the discovered manuscript is truly in Dante‘s hand is told in a very slow tone that demands a great deal of patience from the viewer. I should especially underline that the film’s first half hour is a difficult experience that requires considerable patience. In the Hand of Dante is a film that has a hard time drawing the audience in. If the viewer can endure it and reach the color story, the story of Dante in the 14th century, I think they will begin to catch the links between the two periods and find the film a little more fluid. Still, considering that these two sections are intertwined through cross-cutting, I can also say that following the events is not easy.
When we look at the film’s color section, we see Dante‘s years of exile. Our poet, cast away from Florence, is in the midst of both a political and spiritual rupture. The film also gives us the chance to see that Dante was not only a literary genius. It reminds us that Dante, too, was an “ordinary person” with fears, reckonings of conscience, and, at times, various searches of his own.
A Strong Cast, a Strong Idea, but a Poor Result
One of the notable aspects of In the Hand of Dante, in my opinion, is its cast. The two characters at the center of the film, Nick and Dante, are played by the same actor: Oscar Isaac. We most recently remember Isaac for his performance in Frankenstein (2025), and here he also gives life to two different characters with skill. Yet even if we add together the impact created by these two characters, the performance does not reach the effect of Victor in Frankenstein. Even so, I should say that I liked his performance as Nick, a lost modern man battling regret and obsession, and as Dante, a figure carrying the hardships of exile.
After Oscar Isaac, I would say the film’s biggest surprise is Gerard Butler. Often remembered for his performances in action films, Butler delivers something outside his usual register here. Like Oscar Isaac, he plays two different characters. In the modern timeline he plays a hitman, while in the historical story he plays Pope Boniface VIII. Frankly, I liked Butler‘s performance more.
In addition to these two names, John Malkovich and Duke Nicholson also appear in the film. Yet the actors who surprised me, and I suspect many viewers, were Martin Scorsese and Al Pacino. Scorsese plays a long-bearded, inspiring historical figure who enters into dialogue with Dante in the 14th century, while Al Pacino plays, at the very beginning of the film, a man calming a child who has committed a crime in the modern day. Seeing these two great “masters of crime cinema” given even small roles in this film both surprised and briefly excited me. In that respect, the fact that In the Hand of Dante contains such major names is not something to dismiss.
Still, this piece would be incomplete if I did not say directly that, despite all these stars and despite a grand narrative figure like Dante, I disliked the film in many respects. When I first heard the premise of In the Hand of Dante, I immediately thought of Hamnet (2025). That film also told the story of a towering figure like Shakespeare writing a great work like Hamlet. At first, I thought this film would be something similar. But when I realized it was a story unfolding across two different, interwoven timelines, I understood that it was a different kind of film. I have no objection to that, and it did not bother me. However, I do think a film told through this cross-cutting technique could have been handled through much easier, less boring, and less forced scenes. Considering how some sequences practically test the viewer’s patience, it was a difficult film to watch in every respect. I say this as someone who likes “slow cinema,” too. The forced attempts to build links between Nick and Dante are another issue altogether. In that sense, perhaps In the Hand of Dante will form a devoted audience of its own, but I think many viewers will see it, at best, as an average film.
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