Elisa Amoruso’s patient direction makes room for actors and the awkward business of getting along. We like her attention to people, though Dept. Q could use less time in their company and a firmer cut.
Fi1m perspective
In Dept. Q (2025), the investigators are capable of doing their jobs and getting on one another’s nerves at the same time. We laughed at the friction between Matthew Goode and the ensemble, because their prickliness gives the routine police work some welcome humour. Amoruso and fellow director Scott Frank let that friction matter. They keep the characters at the centre of a familiar troubled-investigator procedural, rather than trying to disguise it as something new.
Amoruso’s movement between documentary and fiction helps explain that attention to behaviour. Her directing debut was the documentary Fuoristrada (2013); her first fiction feature, Maledetta primavera (2020), was a partly autobiographical coming-of-age story. She has carried observational techniques into scripted work, often concentrating on women confronting personal adversity. The Good Mothers (2023), for which she directed three episodes, applies that restraint to a true story about women and the ’ndrangheta, putting their emotional experience ahead of graphic violence. Her feature Amata (2025), concerned with maternity, choice and solidarity, continues that interest in women’s experiences.
Her television work also involves sharing a visual style, casting and tone with other directors. In Dept. Q, Grant Montgomery’s production design makes the Edinburgh cold-case unit feel like a place where colleagues actually have to work together, helping the comedy along. Carlos Rafael Rivera’s music sustains the unease, although it cannot make the slower passages move. These contributions matter when judging Amoruso: the series works through several people understanding what the actors need, and we would be wary of claiming its successes for one director alone.
The reservation is substantial: the middle episodes need a firmer cut, and the writing gives both directors more to accommodate than the story needs. The humour helps, but there are stretches when we wanted the case to get on with it. Start with Dept. Q if prickly company is part of the attraction of a crime series; allow for some dawdling.
Biography
Elisa Amoruso is an Italian director and screenwriter. Born in Rome in 1981, she graduated in literature and performing arts from La Sapienza University of Rome and later studied screenwriting at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia.
She made her directorial debut with the documentary Fuoristrada (2013), which received a special mention at the Rome Film Festival. Her subsequent work includes the documentaries Chiara Ferragni: Unposted (2019) and Bellissime (2019), the feature Maledetta primavera (2020), and episodes of the series The Good Mothers (2023). She directed three episodes of the Netflix series Dept. Q (2025).
