Review of The Great Beauty (2013) by Frank C — 10 Feb 2017

Let's see if this can be the first review of The Great Beauty to do without mentioning Fellini's 8 1/2. Darn... A fascination with the distractions we fill our heads with to avoid our own mortality is what inspired Paolo Sorrentino's picturesque, existential tour of the most romantic city in the world.

Our guide is Jep Gambardella, a journalist-cum-socialite who, shortly after his 65th birthday, realizes relentless pursuit with the high-life has amounted to nothing worthwhile. As we follow Jep on his journey of self-discovery as he desperately seeks a meaning for his existence, Sorrentino's disorientingly fluid camera motions and weapons-grade beautiful photography have a lucid, dreamlike effect that seems to possess the whole film.

This augments the superficial appeal of the lifestyle Jep spent so many years pursuing, and during the many illusory rooftop party sequences, you feel as lost as Jep does. Physically there, but in another dimension mentally.

Truthfully, The Great Beauty doesn't have any strong narrative backbone. It is rather a series of generally deadpan vignettes. But you'll be so ensconced by the hypnotic, preternatural, startlingly, agonizingly beautiful imagery you're being subjected to that you won't care a damn.

Rome has never look so lavish and yet so utterly hollow.