Gal Gadot's Wild In the Hand of Dante Lands on Netflix

An Ambitious Literary Gamble Reaches a Mass Audience

One of the festival circuit's most argued-about films now belongs to everyone. Gal Gadot's latest project, Julian Schnabel's In the Hand of Dante, has arrived on Netflix, trading a limited art-house life for the reach of the world's biggest streaming service. Adapted from Nick Tosches' novel, the drama braids two timelines together: a 14th-century strand following the poet Dante Alighieri and a modern-day crime story built around a stolen manuscript of the Divine Comedy.

That dual structure is reflected in Gadot's casting. As The Hollywood)) Reporter detailed, she takes on two roles across the film's split eras, playing Gemma, the woman Dante marries in the medieval passages, and Giulietta, a central figure in the contemporary plot. It is the kind of double assignment that asks an actor to anchor a movie working in two registers at once.

What the Critics Made of It

The response has been anything but unanimous. The Hollywood Reporter's Caryn James described the film as "a crazy ride that doesn't quite get there," admiring its reach while finding the execution wildly uneven. According to her review:

• The modern, mob-tinged sequences land more convincingly than the historical ones.
• The 14th-century material "attempt[s] to be artistic and profound but sound[s] like hot air."
• Even at its most chaotic, the movie is never boring.

That last point is the throughline of the coverage. Schnabel, a painter-turned-filmmaker whose work has long split audiences, has made the kind of grand, messy passion project that rewards viewers willing to meet it halfway, even as it tests their patience along the way.

A Cast Stacked to the Rafters

The ensemble is enormous by any standard. Oscar Isaac anchors a roster that, per The Hollywood Reporter, also features Jason Momoa, Gerard Butler, John Malkovich, Al Pacino, Franco Nero and Benjamin Clementine, alongside a rare on-camera appearance from Martin Scorsese. A lineup that deep signals the pull Schnabel still holds with serious actors, even on a film this unconventional, and it gives the streaming release a marquee draw beyond Gadot's name.

A High-Risk Swing for Gadot

For Gadot, the project sits well outside the blockbuster territory that made her a household name. After years defined by big-budget tentpoles, an art-house gamble with a polarizing auteur represents a deliberate stretch, the sort of against-type move performers often make to widen their range and work with directors who prize ambition over commercial safety. Roles like Gemma and Giulietta let her trade spectacle for something stranger and riskier.

That kind of swing rarely produces consensus, and the divided reception was almost built into the premise. The upside of a Netflix berth, though, is scale: a film that only a festival crowd could weigh in on now reaches a far larger audience overnight.

What Happens Next

With the film streaming, the debate moves from critics to viewers. Titles this divisive often find a second life on streaming, where curiosity and word of mouth can outrun the reviews, and a built-in audience can sample a "bonkers" experiment with nothing more at stake than a click. Whether In the Hand of Dante becomes a cult favorite or a curiosity, it puts Gadot's dual performance in front of the broad audience that will ultimately decide its fate. All critical assessments here are attributed to The Hollywood Reporter's coverage of the film.