The Great Beauty

Jep Gambardella is a journalist and a regular at salons, where he basks in the glow of his own eloquence and enjoys his fame as the author of a cult novel written several decades earlier. Jep knows Rome by heart. He prefers to explore the city at night, visiting various clubs, extravagant masquerade parties, and luxurious receptions, where he is still a desired guest. His 65th birthday coincides, however, with the appearance of someone from his past. Under his influence, the ironic and intelligent Jep begins to question the schemes and falsehoods around which the cream of society in the capital was consolidated. This is the sort of deconstruction that Paolo Sorrentino undertakes in his film. The blissfully smiling Jep, in a colorful jacket, constantly with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, embodies the mystery and magnetism of the Eternal City, a kingdom of absurdity, lies, and melancholy. Only here can we find a place, simultaneously, for a dwarf businesswoman, for failure, for a plastic-surgery clinic straight out of Cronenberg, for love, for a giraffe, and, most importantly, for a dancing "tube" to nowhere. La grande bellezza in full.

Anna Tatarska