Review of The Great Beauty (2013) by Mohammed Ammar A — 06 Feb 2014

What a pompous, pretentious, trivial, and tedious movie! The characters are unlikeable and, what's worse, boring. Their observations are inane but presented without humor, so I guess we are to take them as profound? Why are these reasonably attractive women sleeping with this extremely unattractive and uninteresting man? Why do we have to see so much of him? The movie is -- somewhat -- saved by glorious cinematography (when something interesting or beautiful is before the camera) and an exquisite soundtrack.

Thus there are moments of mesmerizing beauty. And the disco scenes are entertaining and convincing if at times grotesque. But it's amazing so many critics adore this story despite its uncharismatic lead and gassy dialogue.

Could they be intimidated by the European High Art packaging? "Garden of the Finzi-Continis" this is not.