Michele Morrone makes sense as an imposing figure in a thriller. We are less persuaded when he has to carry a romance: in 365 Days, the dialogue and his delivery make desire hard to believe.
Fi1m perspective
In The Housemaid (2025), Michele Morrone's Enzo keeps turning up to warn Millie in Italian, a language she cannot understand. The repetition approaches a joke, though Paul Feig's film seems only partly aware of it. Here is the use often made of Morrone: put an imposing man on screen and ask his appearance to supply the interest. We can see the usefulness of that presence in a thriller, but we would hesitate to recommend a film on the strength of it.
Before his international breakthrough, there was a lead role in Bar Giuseppe (2019). 365 Days (2020) then put him at the centre as Don Massimo Torricelli, whose pursuit of Anna-Maria Sieklucka's Laura Biel involves holding her captive. Two sequels followed, 365 Days: This Day (2022) and The Next 365 Days (2022). His recurring casting as an intense romantic or criminal figure makes sense, but repeatedly asking an actor to look desirable and dangerous does not tell us much about his abilities.
The difficulty in 365 Days is not that an erotic fantasy must contain sensible people. It is that Morrone and Sieklucka cannot make the desire or the strain of their arrangement sound convincing. We laughed at the awkward line readings, then grew tired of a film that treated them with such solemnity. The writing gives neither performer enough credible behaviour between the sexual encounters, and Morrone's delivery does not fill in what is missing. Attractive sex scenes are a limited compensation when the film also asks us to accept kidnapping as a persuasive start to a love affair.
In The Housemaid, the smaller role leaves us with a different frustration. Rebecca Sonnenshine's script brings Enzo in to issue warnings, and Feig never quite settles how funny those failed communications should be. It is a sketch of a role, and gives us little opportunity to reconsider the awkwardness of 365 Days. We would like to see him given a part that depends on listening and responding before deciding that his looks are all he has to offer. Choose The Housemaid for Amanda Seyfried; it is not much of a test of him.
Biography
Michele Morrone is an Italian actor. He is known for his role as Don Massimo Torricelli in the 2020 film 365 Days and its sequels 365 Days: This Day (2022) and The Next 365 Days (2022).
Morrone has appeared in other films including Subservience (2024) as Nick, The Gentlemen (2024) as Cico Maldini, Another Simple Favor (2025) as Dante Versano, and Home Sweet Home: Rebirth (2025) as Mek. He plays Enzo in The Housemaid (2025).
