A high-flying Roman socialite begins to tire of his lifestyle as he turns 65.

Toni Servillo plays Jep, the dapper writer at the centre of the plot. He’s self-involved but self-aware, and so at home in Rome he never leaves. His life seems to bridge the gap between high culture and the grotesque; artists mingle with strippers, criminals mix with nuns. He lives with the burden of a successful early novel, and the unwillingness or inability to write another.

Sorrentino places him in various scenarios that loosely hang together but The Great Beauty focuses more on aesthetic than narrative. The camera moves slowly through the city, the parties and the scenery. There’s dialogue but it’s used sparingly, an appropriate choice for a film looking to explore the various facets of beauty.

The soundtrack is inspired, it’s almost another character in the film. In fact, Sorrentino’s work on all fronts is masterful; this is easily one of the most beautiful, thoughtfully made films of the last ten years. A true feast for the eyes.

However, it’s a less compelling film in terms of structure. This is, unsurprisingly, a somewhat pretentious film. Perhaps a second viewing would reveal more but the first time round it quickly becomes off-putting. It’s heavy going at times, not always a bad thing, but Sorrentino needs to at least make some effort to draw us in. He is frequently compared to Fellini but Fellini’s films do more work to hold the audience captive.

Instead we are left entirely to our own devices, making the film a taxing experience. Depending on who’s watching, this can be a complete turn off or a minor gripe but either way it’s difficult to ignore.

That said, the gorgeous aesthetics and sound make The Great Beauty a thoroughly worthwhile experience. At worst it’s one of the best looking films you’ll see, at best it could be a profoundly moving experience. For this writer, Sorrentino’s efforts land somewhere in between.

http://benoliver999.com/film/2015/10/16/thegreatbeauty/

Mesmerizing movie staging a decadent and beautiful Rome for a decadent character and greatly played by Toni Servillo. Great cast, nice decadent story and, overally, huge directing by Paolo Sorrentino.

Jep Gambardella: "The trains at our parties are the best in Rome. They're the best cause they go nowhere.

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This is how it always ends. With death. But first there was life. Hidden beneath the blah, blah, blah. It's all settled beneath 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, blah, blah, blah... Beyond there is what lies beyond. I don't deal with what lies beyond. Therefore... let this novel begin. After all... it's just a trick. Yes, it's just a trick."

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From my point of view:
This may be definitely the best subset of art, applied at the best moment in the movie scene, at the best moment of our living at the beginning of the 21st century. All wisdom said in a couple of sentences, helping us to enjoy life, and understand this way of enjoying as much as we can. Anyway, we do not have any better way to beat the trick of living, than just relaxing, realizing we are part of the trick and we cannot change it.
So, just go on, time will pass! :)

This movie is remarkable in many, many ways. It's both so easy yet so difficult to understand it. I've never seen any movie like it. You have to see the movie until the very end to understand it.

The first time I saw the movie, I saw it in 4 parts. The reason I did that is because it was very hard for me to keep watching it. I kept on waiting for the story to start, but then it hit me when I was in the middle of the movie: it's already started, because there is no story. It's a movie without a story, because it tells the great beauty. And until the very end, I disliked the movie. But seeing the ending, I realized what the movie truly was about. I've never seen any movie like it, because it's hard to get that a movie doesn't contain a story. That it's about nothing. And everything.

Watching the movie a second time, I loved it way more then the first time. I knew what it was about, I knew there was nog story, I knew what was going to happen. And yet, the very ending surprised me all over again. Still, I kind of disliked the whole movie, yet loved and loved and loved the ending. It's weird how after that, I still think this is a one in a billion kind of movie. This truly is a story about _la grande bellezza_ and it's a remarkable one.

Despite my very strange yet strong feelings towards this movie, it consists of great acting, powerful music and a wonderful ending scene and ending sequence.

I thought the opening and ending sequence were both exceptional. I thought that the cinematography was possibly the best I've seen from that year. The soundtrack was better than good.

However, the movie didn't really flow together very well. Individual scenes worked well on their own, and could work well within different films, but they did not flow together. I found myself uninterested and uninvested in the story and characters. I tried to love it. I really wanted to, but I found the whole story to be kind of pointless. It was incredibly repetitive (Multiple long and drawn out club scenes, general lack of progression in the story, etc) and I don't feel as though the 2.5 hour length was justified. I was looking for ways to be sucked into the film. There were individual scenes that were able to suck me in, but I didn't feel invested or attached to the movie as a whole. It was very well made in terms of filmmaking, but cinematography only goes so far with me. I consider cinematography to be like icing on a cake. With this film, I found myself with a plate full of icing. I know there's cake buried in there somewhere, but something tells me that there isn't all that much.