When you hear that Netflix has a new Italian drama called Supersex about the life and times of famed porn star Rocco Siffredi, a man who once starred in a series of films with “Buttman” in the title, you might have certain low expectations. After all, Netflix has a penchant for dropping tawdry foreign films on us; movies where the sex scenes are athletic, but the acting and dialogue are limp. However, Supersex defies those cliches by being a searing, scintillating, and serious look at one man’s angels and demons. It’s beautifully shot, powerfully written, and gorgeously acted. Oh, and the sex scenes are indeed banging. Supersex isn’t the latest Netflix guilty pleasure. Rather, it’s like if Elena Ferrante had the cajones to write My Brilliant Friend about a porn star. Guys, Supersex is good!?
Supersex was created by Italian writer Francesca Manieri (We Are Who We Are) and is loosely inspired on the real life of Italian porn legend Rocco Siffredi. The show opens in 2004, at the height of his powers. When Rocco (Alessandro Borghi) arrives at a Parisian porn expo, he’s treated like some hybrid of the Beatles and Barrack Obama, but for sex. However, a standard Q&A goes awry when he sees his dead brother Tommaso (Adriano Giannini) in the audience. The shaken Rocco announces his retirement, which only results in a beautiful hostess named Noemi (Noemi Brando) literally begging him not to quit backstage. You see, she only came to Paris to shoot a porno with him! He draws her in and immediately takes her…while conference attendees watch on. He uses the crowd’s voyeurism to tell her mid-sex that she’s just flesh to them. Noemi seems to like it just fine.
A cold open like that definitely establishes right off the bat that Supersex will indeed be about sex. However, the episode that follows builds a deeper intimacy between us and the character of Rocco. By going back to his impoverished childhood in Ortona, learning about how sex became his one superpower in a life where he became powerless, Rocco’s own emotional journey becomes the engine propelling Supersex‘s steamy ride.
Little Rocco Tano (Marco Fiore) longs for his kind, religious mother Carmela’s (Tania Garribba) love, but her attention is focused solely on son Claudio (Emanuele Bracone), who has been disabled ever since local bullies “the gypsies” clubbed his head for kicks when he was small. Instead, Rocco’s older “brother” Tommaso (Francesco Pellegrino) is the one person who dotes on Rocco. It doesn’t matter that the gossip is that Tommaso is the bastard son of a sex worker left with the Tanos. The handsome 21-year-old dates local queen bee Lucia (Eva Cela), brings cash (from somewhere?) home to Carmela, and buoys Rocco up like no one else. Tommaso is Rocco’s whole world.
Sex enters Rocco’s world the same day Claudio dies. Rocco finds Supersex, a comic book about a superhero whose power is his libido, by the side of the world. It opens a new world up to him in more ways than one. Besides getting a chance to learn about the birds and the bees, the local kids consider Rocco a hero now. He doles out glimpses of the smutty comic book like Immortem Joe gifts water.
Sex also threatens to tear Rocco’s family unit apart. When the little boy learns first hand that Tommaso’s beloved Lucia is a sex worker herself, the family turns their back on the older boy. He marries Lucia and moves to Paris where a teenaged Rocco (Saul Nanni) joins them in Episode 2. And by this point, I wasn’t just hooked by Supersex‘s refreshing candor about human sexuality — there’s literally a scene where Tommaso tells Rocco it’s nothing to be afraid of! — but by Rocco’s story and his complex relationship with Tommaso.
Of course, there’s also the sex. I can confirm there is a lot of sex. There’s the awkward fumbling sex of a teenager embarking on his first time. There’s a dehumanizing moment where an older Tommaso and teen Rocco get serviced by faceless sex workers in the slums of Paris. There’s orgies and BDSM and anal and oral and more, more, more. Rocco is, after all, a porn star. There’s going to be depictions of porn! And Supersex tackles this spectrum of sexuality with eager aplomb.
Love, power, sex, shame, money, family…these are the forces threatening to pull Rocco apart at every moment. Supersex revels in layering these themes in the most seductive ways possible. I soon found myself, like Noemi, happily at the show’s mercy. After plowing through the first two episodes, I was desperate for more. I have a hunch Netflix fans will be, too.
Supersex manages to weave together smut and art in intoxicating measure. It could very well be the first foreign language show since Squid Game to dominate Netflix’s other programming for weeks at a time. It’s also, thankfully, bringing back the kind of artsy, steamy, European storytelling that used to be all over the streaming site. (Does anyone else remember Wetlands?? Gaspard Noe’s Love?!?) But most of all, like My Brilliant Friend, it follows an impoverished, talented Italian as they discover their most cherished relationships might be more complicated than they initially thought.
One way or another, Supersex is going to claw its hooks into you. You may as well submit and enjoy.