‘The Leopard’ on Netflix: How a prince’s struggle teaches valuable money lessons

Netflix released this beautiful period drama about a revolution most of us did not learn in high school: the great unification which is said to have started in Turin (called ‘The Cradle of Italian liberty’ for having been the political and intellectual centre of the Risorgimento that led to that unification of Italy). 

Even if you didn’t care for the political situation of the show, you would like this slow-burn of a series that concentrates on the beliefs of a Prince who refuses to believe that his world is changing, but at the same time shows how he manipulates this new world to his old world ways. And yes, he also has to deal with his rebellious family…

Prince Salina (played by Kim Rossi Stuart) loves his nephew Tancredi (Saul Nanni from Disney’s Alex &Co) who lives off him even though he’s fighting with Garibaldi’s nationalist troops hell bent on killing the aristocrats. Salina’s daughter Concetta is inordinately attracted to Tancredi who flirts with her for her affection. Prince Salina has four other children and a wife but their roles are peripheral to the central theme of the inevitability of change.

What are the money lessons that we can learn from this stunningly beautiful period story about a revolution?

For things to remain the same, everything must change

This is the most famous quote from Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s 1958 novel called The Leopard on which this beautiful series is based. Prince Salina is a rich landowner with several properties across Sicily. He is a sharp and just landlord, catching men stealing from his farms. His wife is a patron of the Church. His family’s table is overladen with fabulous foods. It’s easy to see why he does not believe a ‘general’ with his ragtag group of redcoats is going to force him to join a united Italy. But his nephew reminds him that the support for Garibaldi is growing and in his own backyard of Palermo, people are looking to change things. Salina knows that he has to manipulate the new regime – by changing his tactics – to make sure that his family and his lands are safe.

Salina has never voted, ever. But when the avaricious Mayor puts him in a spot in public, he makes a show of voting for a united Italy. When he has to rescue his nephew from being shot by a firing squad, he has to bribe an official with a huge piece of land. After the land goes, Salina ensures that the man robbing him earlier robs the official blind. That’s manipulating at its best. So whether he accepts it or not, he has to change in order to keep everything as always. Such is the nature of truth!

When newer safer methods of saving your hard earned money show up, you will find many people wary of accepting change. They will dissuade you from using your bank app on the phone, or learn to use a digital payment system. They will be among the scaremongers: what if someone hacks your phone and takes away all your money?!

But in order to keep things in your life working smoothly as always, everyone learnt how important it was to pay digitally when people were stuck at home during the pandemic! And when demonetisation hit, those who had stacked their pillows with wads of cash had to learn to deal with the change the hard way…

Who will become the Leopard?

Prince Salina ruminates about how awful change has been for the old order. He has had to endure dancing a waltz with the beautiful but ambitious Angelica (The gorgeous Deva Cassell) for whom he may have once felt lust, but has only disgust because of her less than acceptable social behaviour. He is so poised and impeccably in control because she has asked him publicly for a dance. Good manners prevent him from saying no, but later he tells his daughter Concetta, ‘We were the leopards… The lions… Those who take our place will be jackals hyenas. Everything will be different but worse. The leopards out there, jackals, sheep, will all go on thinking of ourselves as the genuine salt of the earth.’

He reminds Concetta that after her brother Paulo’s death (killed by the jackals), the title will go to the younger brother, but it will be her responsibility to take his place and look after the lands, the people and the family.

Concetta has been a rebel all her life, vehemently opposing her father’s manipulations that make Tancredi marry Angelica. So much so that she takes refuge in a nunnery, hoping to become a nun just to get back at her father. After her father’s death, she teaches the hyenas and jackals lessons she has naturally learnt from her father.

We try to not think of death in real life. But everyone must have a plan. Who inherits your property? What provisions have you made for your spouse? If you own a successful family business, have you nurtured your successor? Have you created a will? These are considerations which you must learn from the show. Your finances need to be managed for the future (those ‘update your KYC’ calls and messages from the bank feel intrusive and pesky, but they are important because you really must plan for the future. Otherwise your heirs will end up in court over your wealth, and deserving ones may lose to the hyenas and the jackals.

While everyone is reacting to Robert de Niro’s show Zero Day where panic sets in when a bank falls prey to a cyber attack, The Leopard makes its mark by being languidly beautiful and it tells us a glossy period tale. And if you like food as much as I do, then you will look up recipes for Timballo or plan a holiday in Sicily!

Manisha Lakhe is a poet, film critic, traveller, founder of Caferati — an online writer’s forum, hosts Mumbai’s oldest open mic, and teaches advertising, films and communication. She can be reached on Twitter at @manishalakhe.