Review of The Great Beauty

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.