Pick of the week
The Leopard
Giuseppe Tomasi’s 1958 novel Il Gattopardo doesn’t lack ambition, tracking the creation of modern Italy via the story of one aristocratic family. This adaptation is suitably grand and sprawling – an explosion of summertime colour and a fine advertisement for rural Sicily. It tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, a landed prince attempting to hold back the tides of change as Garibaldi’s revolutionary army threatens what he considers his family’s ancestral birthright. Netflix has its cake and eats it, paying lip service to history while leaning heavily into the plentiful sex, sun and scenery, delivering the goods as a lush, stylish costume drama.
Netflix, from Wednesday 5 March
