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This movie's title means "The Big Beauty", and the story is set in Rome. Of course, the city is prominently featured, so much and so long that it makes you think that "Rome" could be probably credited among the actors, at least for a supporting role, as "herself". But buyer beware (or, to appropriately use the Latin, Caveat Emptor): this is not a film about the beauty of the immortal city. In a nutshell, I would say that this movie is about the constant research of beauty and meaning in life by an aging intellectual named Jep. I am sure I won't give away too much if I say that, eventually, he will became aware that the beauty in his life is not in Rome – heck, it's not even in the present: poor Jep has been searching for so long in the wrong place, and in the wrong time.

Somebody could be annoyed by the fact that nobody in the movie seems never to do any kind of work at all -- curiously enough, the only self-proclaimed hardworking man happens to be a very seriously-looking international criminal! But for most of the other characters, money looks more like a cause, than a consequence of life. Without the restraints of needs, left with no practical excuses for not being happy, they still accomplish somehow the no small feat of spoiling their lives with various forms of suffering and pain.

The story is wonderfully told both by images and dialogues. It takes some kind of "magic realism" turn towards the end – but that's balanced by the steadily cynic tone of the stream of consciousness coming out from Jep, wandering around the city like Marlowe in Los Angeles. Paolo Sorrentino is a writer, too: he has written a couple of enjoyable books starring a character very similar to the one depicted in the movie, a cold bastard bon vivant with a surprisingly soft heart. Mr. Toni Servillo provides flesh, and bone, and looks, and wit for this character. Just another major performance from the greatest Italian living actor: at the end of the movie it leaves into the audience the clear idea to have actually known a real person, not just a fictional one. The whole supporting cast is great, and very well-picked. A special mention goes to Sabrina Ferilli and Carlo Verdone, two very famous actors in Italy, shining here in two supporting roles where both of them display their undisputed talent.

Deep and elegant mental decadence in nowadays Rome. I did love so much this film, it reminds me some old classic Italian movies. Watching the movie I thought about Marcello Mastroianni, it could have been the perfect actor for this film if this was his movies era. But do not misunderstand me, Toni Servillo is in my opinion the best actor for this movie. Locations are decadent and superb. What I liked so much about this movie is also the rhythm, the pauses and all the surrounding characters that give sense to the whole decadent plot. When the movie ended, I and other people stood up and watched the screen silently. This is a movie that lasts in your mind for a long time. As sadness and emptiness are perfectly mixed in the main character with poetry and sincere joie di vivre, all surrounded with astonishing and unusual views of Rome.

The Great Beauty is such an unusual concoction of sights and sounds, it's a wonder it works at all. Watching it is like seeing a walking bicycle and realizing, to your amazement, that one can actually ride it.

The movie follows Jep Gambardella, the king of Rome's night life. Jep came to Rome in his twenties, after having written a very promising novel, but 40 years later he is settled as a journalist for a high-class literary magazine. Jep has friends, who are just as frustrated and unsatisfied with their lives as he is, despite having all their red Ferraris and high-rise condos. Together they keep each other company and form a support group of sorts. The presence of other miserable people convinces them it's OK, the life is still worth living and facade is still worth maintaining.

Jep has invested last four decades into becoming the Rome's chief socialite and now he has the power to make party a success or disaster. But there's something compulsive about his pursuit of entertainment and admiration. Like a functioning alcoholic, Jep doesn't enjoy his life, but has no will to change it either. He reminds me of Michael Fassbender's sex-addict character in Shame. At the time of orgasm, Fassbender's expression was not that of pleasure, but of pain.

Soon after his 65th birthday, Jep notes to himself that he no longer can afford doing things he doesn't want to do. Instead, he looks up his old friends, learns more about his now-dead girlfriend who left him 40 years ago and develops a friendship with 41 year old stripper named Ramona. Ramona doesn't try to appear important or intellectual, she seems to exist entirely in the present moment. (That presence of mind has its own price, as we learn later)

One of the appealing things about Great Beauty is that its characters are not aware of how funny they are. The pinnacle of comical absurdity is a 104 year old Catholic 'saint'. She's not official saint yet, we're told, but everyone calls her Santa (Saint) Maria. She looks like a mummy that just walked out of its glass case in British Museum, communicates with animals and at one point parodies the 'stair crawl' from the Exorcist. And yet, at no point the film is making fun of her. Nobody seems to question their sanity when Santa Maria asks a flock of migrating flamingos to rest on Jep's balcony.

Sometimes I think the Great Beauty is making it intentionally difficult for us to get to the story. The opening scene with Jep's euro-trash birthday party lasts several minutes longer than storytelling rules require. The changes between scenes are often abrupt and even stunning, leaving the viewer to fill the gaps. There's no obvious drama or big emotional payoff, as you'd expect from an American movie. And yet, at its core, it's the same old story about a writer who has lost his inspiration and tries to figure his place in the world. I feel sympathy for him and his journey, just like I would in any other film.

Fifty years ago, Toni Servillo wrote a novel. It was praised, won an award, and he came to Rome and got caught up in the party set. He earns a living as an interviewer. Occasionally he is asked why he never wrote another novel, and he offers various, patently untrue reasons. Now his first love, whom he has not seen in more than forty years, has died. He turns thoughtful. He remains amused by the circus of the party set, but shreds their pretensions with a few well chosen words. He is obviously suffering a spiritual crisis, but when he tries to seek advice from a cardinal who is said to be next in line for the Papacy, the man walks away.

The obvious move to compare this to is Fellini's 8½, but I see its roots in Samuel Pepys' dictum that "when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life." Servillo is not tired of life, but he is tired of this life, and sees death coming for him. He is perfect in the role.

Writer-director Paolo Sorrentino fills the screen with beautifully shot images: the overblown spectacle of the party set trying to amuse themselves, and the quiet beauty of the old Rome, its bridges, the shores, the Colisseum across the street from Servillo's apartment, the remembered image of his first love. It's a rich, beautiful, thoughtful, wistful movie.

This film is a modern masterpiece of Cinema. Luca Bigazzi's cinematography is beautiful, with elegant tracking shots of Rome that draw the viewer into the loveliness of Jep's world (even if age and experience seems to have robbed him of the ability to feel and see this great beauty himself).

The enchanting score of choral works by David Lang (I Lie), Vladimir Martynov (The Beatitudes), John Tavener (The Lamb) and Arvo Part (My Heart is in the Highlands) give depth to the wonderful images of Rome. This haunting soundtrack replaces the need for dialogue and adds intensity to Servillo's melancholic performance.

Servillo's acting is superb from his moments of dry humour to the heartbreaking intensity of those feelings he cannot quite hold on to.

La Grande Bellezza gives a window into Roman life that is probably only fully understood by a fellow Roman. However all can appreciate the aesthetic pleasure of Sorrentino's Rome and the bittersweet meanderings of its characters.

This is a cinema of the highest order, imbued with elegance & style. For the viewer it is like swimming in honey. Grazie Signore Sorrentino.

Italian cinema is, at last, on a roll again. Perhaps not in the same way as when Rossellini, Visconti, Fellini and De Sica were batting masterpiece after masterpiece into the arena but maybe more prodigiously than at any time since the young Olmi and young Bertolucci were setting the screen alight. In recent years we have had Michelangelo Frammartino's "Le Quattro Volte", Gianni De Gregorio's sublimely gentle comedies "Mid-August Lunch" and "The Salt of Life" and, perhaps best of all, the films of Paolo Sorrentino whose "The Consequences of Love", "The Family Friend" and "Il Divo" were highly original and sufficiently off-the-wall to invite comparisons with Fellini. His one venture into English-language cinema, "This Must be the Place", met with a largely hostile reception from critics who accused him of being self-indulgent but I found the film to be gorgeous and quirky and just what I would have expected from so idiosyncratic a talent. And now we have "The Great Beauty", a return to Italy and a return to, what his critics might see as, earlier form.

This film, too, has been compared to Fellini which is entirely appropriate as this is a "La Dolce Vita" for the 21st century. You can even imagine the film's central character, Jeb, as Marcello, older if hardly wiser and for Sorrentino nothing much has changed. But if this is Sorrentino in Fellini mode it's just as close to the beauty and spectacle of "Amarcord" or, more appropriately, "Juliet of the Spirits". Once again the lead is taken by Toni Servillo, who was Sorrentino's Andreotti in "Il Divo" and once again he confirms his position as one of the cinema's finest actors, heading a truly superb ensemble cast.

As in "La Dolce Vita" there is no real 'story' but rather a series of episodes in the life of Jeb in the days following his 65th birthday, (his birthday party is the first of the film's many great sequences). If there is a theme it's Jeb's increasing disillusionment with the lifestyle he has associated himself with over the years, a lifestyle he is very reluctant to give up, no matter how pragmatically he views it. He is a man who has had many women but no real relationship to speak of, (the early love of his life married someone else). He meets the daughter of an old friend, a 42 year old stripper with a drug habit, and they strike up a relationship of sorts though when they go to bed together he is happy when they don't have sex. He gets sustenance from his friends although he can be cutting and abrasive in their presence. It seems as it is they, and not money or power, which keeps him going.

This is a magnificent movie, the kind of film that you know is being composed, frame by gorgeous frame, by a master film-maker. It is a breathtaking melange of sound and images, of great performances and superlative dialogue that draws you in and holds you from its first shot to its last. Some directors open their films with great tracking shots but Sorrentino saves his to the end, up, over and under the bridges of the Tiber as the final credits roll. Don't leave the cinema to the very last second.

I had to go to see this movie twice in a row as the first time was not enough: I was literally overwhelmed by it like the Japanese tourist at the beginning of the movie.

The movie is about Rome, about true love, about decadence, about difficulty of communicating, about values.

But the most important subject is life itself and how to live without having regrets.

Many word have been spent about Sorrentino talent, so I am not going to talk about it: he is without doubts one of the most talented directors alive (and surely the best Italian).

The great beauty is well written, dialogues are intelligent and philosophic, really good food for thoughts.

The character are perfectly described and very, very well played (Toni Servillo is not a surprise because we knew him from The consequences of love and Il divo), but other actors like Sabrina Ferilli and Carlo Verdone, they have been a nice discover indeed.

You will leave the theatre with the awareness you have seen a masterpiece.

Highly recommended

It must have been a film full of meanings, but I didn't understand the half of it, I found it monotonous and boring, long and meaningless, good photography, confusing script, bizarre and strange characters, melancholy protagonist. It's one of those films that requires extraordinary depth and sensitivity to be able to understand the fullness of the lines, speeches, actions and opinions... I'm still short... "The Hunt" didn't deserve to lose the Oscar for this one...

This lengthy (142mins) intriguing, complex movie follows the reflections of former novelist, Jem Gambardella (Toni Servillo), as he contemplates his past and current life, a life, it would appear, of lost opportunities both personal and professional.

As a member of the wealthy elite of Roman society, he participates in their empty pastimes; parties fuelled with drink and drugs, bizarre art events and casual sexual encounters with beautiful but soulless women. Gambardella is both participant and observer, watching himself as much as his associates, mysterious animals trapped in the gilded cage that is Rome with all the stunning beauty of its architecture, fountains, sculptures, and paintings.

We are shown a funeral where Gambradella acts out the etiquette he has just been describing to us; a dinner with a cardinal who seems more interested in food than faith; a saintly nun of extreme age mounting a stone staircase on her knees and crawling painfully onwards and upwards towards an image of Christ . . . Everywhere, life presents contradictions, material and spiritual, emotional pretence and genuine feeling, the Eternal City and its mortal inhabitants, . . .

If all this sounds too heavy, everything is carried along by a welter of gorgeous images complemented by music that varies from the ethereal to hefty thumping dance beats. And the actors' performances are never less than utterly convincing.

At one of the parties as the massed participants enter into yet another conga-style dance, Gambardella remarks that 'we have the best trains in Rome because they don't go anywhere.' Everything comes back to where it starts and ends where it began. So in the long final credits sequence we float languidly beneath the bridges of Rome, left to contemplate the setting in which we first encountered the genial but disillusioned Gambardella.

This is an sumptuous, sensuous, fascinating movie which for me at least probably needs more than one viewing to fully appreciate. Don't miss it!

(Viewed at Screen 1, The Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK, 12 September 2013)

to Felini. to the Rome who remains an obscure legend. to a kind of Visconti universe. to a refuge. eccentric, bizarre, comfortable. a great trip in a well known universe. full of cultural references, in a sort of escapes from yourself in the most profound​ yourself. a magnificent show. or another La bella vita. the same, after decades. but so different for the courage to be itself. a homage and a return. to the old things remaining, always, fundamental.for the extraordinary beauty, for memorable scenes, for a sort of confession of another Giuseppe di Lampedusa, for the scene of meeting with Fanny Ardant, for the venerable nun , for the dose of fascinating freedom.

To my opinion the movie shows a great work done by the director , actors and also a great soundtrack, but it lacks a purpose. After watching so many beautiful parts of life, parties, music, love, belief I was not getting the point of why certain elements had to be on the movie. It looks like many elements are inserted there only for the reason of appearing beautiful under a certain light and with a certain music on the background and that's it. I would like to mention here the Chekhov's gun principle that goes more or less like : "If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there." . To me this movie has a lot of pistols hanging on walls and very few of them are fired.

Russian composer Vladimir Martynov said, "A man touches the truth twice. The first time is the first cry from a new born baby's lips and the last is the death rattle. Everything between is untruth to a greater or lesser extent." Many Hindu and Buddhist teachings also refer to the world as being Maya or illusion. According to French writer Louis-Ferdinand Celine, "Our journey is entirely imaginary. That is its strength. It's a novel, just a fictitious narrative." In Paolo Sorrentino's stunning The Great Beauty, novelist Jep Ganbardella (Toni Servillo), unable to write another book since his successful first novel, The Human Apparatus, agrees, saying "After all... it's just a trick. Yes, it's just a trick." To discover that, however, he has to move past "the chitter-chatter and the noise, silence and sentiment, emotion and fear, the haggard, inconstant flashes of beauty, and then the wretched squalor and miserable humanity, all buried under the cover of the embarrassment of being in the world." Winner of the Golden Globe award for Best Foreign Film and Italy's entry for the 2014 Oscars in the same category, The Great Beauty is a character study of the decadent elites of modern Rome and by extension, contemporary society, yet it also moves beyond that to examine eternal themes of death, love, beauty, and the complexity of life and art.

The film begins on a jarring and surreal note and continues in an episodic Fellini-like vein throughout its two and one-half hour runtime - the sweet life revisited. After snapping a picture of the skyline with its beautiful domes and bell towers, a Japanese tourist visiting Janiculum Hill suddenly collapses and dies. We are suddenly shifted to a raucous 65th birthday party for Gambardella on a terrace opposite the Roman Colosseum where seemingly all the socialites, would-be artists, and pseudo-elites have gathered, perhaps the one-percenters of Roman society. One almost expects to see an "Occupy Via Veneto" demonstration in the streets below.

As Jep moves in and out and around the Roman high life, Sorrentino's acerbic put-downs and satire of the rich and famous travel with him. Now a journalist for a Vanity-Fair style culture magazine, he watches a performance artist run headlong into a brick wall, sustaining a deep cut on her head, then later interviews her, doggedly asking her to explain what she meant by "feeling vibrations." He waits his turn for a plastic surgeon at a Botox injection session, takes in a performance of a man throwing knives at a frightened-looking woman, observes a live giraffe at a historic site in rehearsal for a magic show, looks at a photographer's self-portraits that span his entire lifetime, and sees a 12-year-old girl heaving different colored cans of paint at a wall canvas while crying and screaming.

Through all the partying, the hedonism, and the ersatz art shows, there exists a stream of discernible emptiness that runs not only through his own life, but through the lives of those he surrounds himself with. After calling out a woman's pretensions, he softens the blow by telling her, "We're all on the brink of despair. All we can do is look each other in the face, keep each other company, joke a little. Don't you agree?" His relationship with Ramona (Sabrina Ferilli), the daughter of his good friend, the struggling playwright Romano (Carlo Verdone), however, brings a new focus to his life but it is short-lived.

It is only when he hears of the death of Eliza, a girl he loved as a teenager, that he receives a wake-up call. Reliving his missed opportunity in flashbacks, he learns through her diary that she loved him all along and begins to reexamine the direction of his life. After a less than enlightening meeting with an aging cardinal (Roberto Herlitzka) who wants to talk only about his favorite recipes, he throws a dinner party for a 104-year-old woman rumored to be destined for sainthood who has spent her life working with the poor in Africa and who subsists on 40 grams of plant roots. Seeing life in all of its simplicity and wonder, she movingly points him in the direction of the authentic "great beauty" that he seeks.

Servillo is magnificent as the blocked writer seeking renewal and his presence makes every scene come alive with spontaneity. Adding to this is the gorgeous soundtrack featuring The Beatitudes of Martynov, choral works by David Lang, John Taverner, and Arvo Part, and the contemporary Yolanda Be Cool's We No Speak Americano. Though The Great Beauty is not a film about Rome per se, the cinematography of Luca Bigazza memorably captures the striking sights and sounds of The Eternal City, the ancient monuments juxtaposed with the modern buildings. Literally bursting with the pulse of flawed humanity, The Great Beauty is a feast for the eyes, the ears, and the soul.

La grande belleza follows the current flow of cinema. The beauty in this film is set in front of the camera and the camera records it, either a beautiful image or a beautiful quote. This is a pornografic way of making beauty in cinema, every sequence is beautiful in itself, it doesn't depend on the other sequences. Every sequence is a climax, there is no more construction, this is, in my opinion, the end of cinema, as we have known untill a few years. Beauty in cinema had always been made with the language of cinema, with the estructure of elements that didn't have to be beatiful in themselves but they were beautiful when they were put together. Seed to collect. Good references and good intentions, but poor cinema value.

For me, this film goes to the absolute limits of what can be achieved in a film. Each shot, each scene is a thing of great beauty. The plot is secondary. It was a delight to watch. I might admit a bias: I am an Italophile. And this film has all things Italian: style, of course, but more than that it's the attitude that no matter how they look, they're confident in themselves. There were lots of ironic moments in the film as well: almost as if it were the Italians mocking themselves. Film centers around a main character, and Toni Sevillo is perfect. His character is memorable: he stands out like a character in a great novel. All the other actors, almost stock characters are perfect too. The film's got some ideas too: ideas about art, and life, and transcendence, but somehow one doesn't pay much attention to these too, given all this beauty.

Greetings again from the darkness. This is Italy's submission to the Academy for Best Foreign Film of 2013. If it wasn't such a beautiful film to watch, a fun game of spot the Italian director influence could be played. Director Paolo Sorrentino owes much to Fellini and La dolce vita, but this is more than a tribute. Sorrentino shows much style and insight, and his commitment to camera angles, movement, colors, textures and faces are quite something to behold.

Toni Servillo plays Jep Gambardella, a man celebrating his 65th birthday by doing what he does most every night ... partying with his group of intellectual friends. Jep had a successful novel published in his 20's and has since worked sporadically as a journalist, but has never again focused on his writing. One can't help but notice the similarities to Marcello Mastroianni in La dolce vita, but Jep is jolted with news that sends him flashing back to his younger years and his one true love.

Much of the story includes Roman decadence, and it can easily be viewed as the decline of Roman civilization both past and present. See, Jep's apartment overlooks the famous ruins of The Colosseum. Even moreso, we get a nice conflict between uppity society and the all too important modern and conceptual art crowd. Toss in a few pot shots at the Vatican and Sorrentino seems to be telling us that everyone takes themselves entirely too seriously ... even as we belittle and judge others. Whatever his true message, the sensory overload provided here could be a film class in camera style and is quite fun to watch.

This is one of the most visually remarkable films I've ever seen. It captures the spirit and beauty of Rome. The camera delves into corners and crevices of the night life and the daytime of this eternal city. This is the story of a man who has debauched his way through life. At sixty-five, he begins to wonder what happened. He is highly respected for his single book (he never wrote another) and has casual friends who are more users than true companions. He hearkens back to a relationship he had earlier, where a woman he could have had, instead ends up with a close friend, who, it turns out, never made her happy. The actions of the characters are vacuous and relatively feckless. He encounters artists who are mostly show and little substance. We see self-indulgent women wasting their lives. This is certainly more about the journey than the result. The people who are most solid in this man's life are the one's he takes for granted. Death seems to be around the corner and what do we do until that happens? Does it make any difference what we do? The beauty here is all around, but is wasted on most of these people.

I can't say I dislike this film. It has some seriously wonderful scenes, some truly exquisitely photographed and performed scenes, scenes that truly transcend into something quite beautiful. But this is only 20% of the film, or so. The rest is meandering and while I'm usually all in favor for films like this, ambiguous to a fault, I usually feel something, some spark of emotion that's on the screen. With this, nothing. As it is, I can't say it's totally a good film, but I also can't quite dismiss it. Maybe it's something that needs a rewatch, but I don't see myself having the excitement to actually rewatch it, not even for the amazing cinematography.

Jep Gambardella once wrote an award winning novella. He is now an aged socialite writer. After his lavish 65th birthday party, he starts to reflect on his life and taking stock of his future. He meets various people in his life. He wonders if he should write another novel. A friend asks him to find a husband for his 40 year old stripper daughter Romona.

This is no doubt that this is beautifully shot. The characters live in such a pretentious world that it comes off somewhat surreal. At some point, I rather not spend any more time with these people. These people are cold and eat at my nerves. There is one good laugh early on. That young girl who is forced to paint for her parents is the most compelling scene. It says so much that there are so few kids in the movie and she doesn't even want to be in their world. This is an old, tired and pretentious Rome. That may be the point but it's not fun to watch.

I was totally blown away by this movie. I'd say that this is a new classic movie, a true masterpiece, making a great new addition to (Italian) cinema history. It could sound a little too much, but there has rarely been a movie portraying its time, people and place in a more inventive, fun, clever and aesthetic way. Obvious parallels can be made to La Dolce Vita, which is an obvious model throughout the movie (some scenes are clear homage to the Fellini masterpiece), but the incredible thing is that this movie is not diminished by this parallel, it is a great new / updated interpretation of that same idea of cinema. Actors are superb as the cinematography. At times surreal, at times very funny, at times cynic, ironic, dramatic and in the end poetical and incredibly enjoyable and inventive. How could Cannes Film Festival not award such a masterpiece remains a mystery. If you love cinema go watch this movie.

This film has won four European Film Awards, and is supposed to be the best European film of 2013. When it was released in Belgium, I didn't pay much attention to it. But I wouldn't have forgiven myself for not having seen the best European film of the year, so I decided to go see it after all. It has been playing for a while in Belgium, but fortunately there was a Sunday afternoon screening in my neighbourhood cinema.

'La Grande Belezza' or 'The Great Beauty' is a very suitable title for this film. It is full of beautiful people, moving around in a beautiful city, wearing beautiful clothes. Many scenes are aesthetically very attractive, with original camera angles and nice gliding movements. But at the same time, the film feels empty. It's all form and no feeling.

Jep Gambardella, a socialite, writer and journalist, gives a party for his 65th birthday and realizes that he has been living in an artificial world of people showing off, having fun, and trying to impress each other. What's more, he realizes that he himself is the most superficial of them all. 'From now on, I won't waste any more time on things I don't like', he decides, and refuses to watch nude pictures of the woman he has just had sex with.

The film shows the cynical Gambardella in a long series of encounters with all sorts of friends and acquaintances. The succession of strange characters, the decadence of the jet set, the beautiful locations in Rome - of course you can't see this film without thinking about Fellini. But Fellini didn't show things just for the sake of it. Paolo Sorrentino does. The film has far too many superfluous and confusing scenes and is far too long. The fountain scene the films starts with is beautifully filmed, but the meaning remains unclear. The birthday party is annoyingly long and keeps on showing the same things. The scene with the giraffe is very Fellini-esque, but doesn't serve a purpose. And so on.

How this film could have won the European Film Award for best picture is beyond me. Personally, I would have voted for Asghar Farhadi's masterpiece 'Le Passé' (if it would have been nominated).

(Just one more thing: this film has great promotional value for the Italian men's fashion industry. Jep Gambardella is impeccably dressed throughout the whole movie. It makes you want to run to the nearest Corneliani-store and spend a fortune.)

To say that La Grande Bellezza overflows with references to La Dolce Vita, the beacon which still sheds its nostalgic light upon Rome's nightlife and myth, is an understatement. In this regard, originality is certainly not a quality that one is likely to find in that film. Similarly to its model, La Grande Bellezza's main character is a middle-aged man who has renounced his literary ambitions so as to revel in Rome's superficial jet set; this allows him to hold a privileged position as both witness and accomplice to the "eternal city"'s contradictions. Likewise, Jep Gambardella is both detached and passionate, cynical and elegiac about his city and its inhabitants - much like, apparently, the film's director. The film basically consists of a series of apparently disconnected episodes in Jep's roaming around the Italian capital. These episodes are suffused with a breathtaking sense of beauty and awe (yes, you will fall in love with Rome when you see this!), yet these scenes are systematically mitigated contrapuntally by grotesque interludes, satirical of Rome's religious, artistic or social elite, much as in Fellini's film. In short, for me Sorrentino's film is the dream offspring, updated and highly stylized, of the giant it never ceases to pay homage to.

What happens when you cross La dolce vita and 8 1/2? Something like La grande bellezza, except that nothing in the latter is new anymore, beyond the updated setting. It took me three nights to get through this film, which although cinematographically beautiful, was tedious and desultory. Adding insult to injury, the last fifteen minutes are spent trying to turn it into some sort of work of great philosophical profundity. The saint with rotting teeth? Sorry, but she really adds nothing but another grotesque character among many (again: see Fellini).

I am wondering whether the high ratings by some people are being given not in spite of this being a Fellini knock-off but precisely because that is what it is? Do people think that films which are "Fellini-esque" are automatically great? Did anyone really enjoy watching the long takes on the protagonist's dour expression throughout the film. In fact, now that I think about it, we have here also a riff off of Antonioni's failed artist turned architect. So nothing new here at all.

Sorry fans!