Director: Paolo Sorrentino
Screenwriters: Paolo Sorrentino, Umberto Contarello
Stars: Toni Servillo, Sabrina Ferilli, Carlo Verdone
A double edged movie:
"The Great Beauty" is an Italian film written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino, Italy's latest movie wunderchild, and it is the front runner in the race for the Best Foreign Language Picture award come the Oscar ceremony this Sunday. Seeing as its only real competitor, Thomas Vinterberg's "The Hunt", a Danish movie which I have reviewed in the past, is representing my own country at the Oscars, I decided to watch The Great Beauty last night in order to find out what The Hunt is up against. The film ended up leaving me with a bittersweet taste in my mouth though, partly because I think it is much better than The Hunt and find myself hoping it will win the Oscar over my own county's submission, and partly because I think it could have been even better than it already is.
The story of a self confessed misanthrope:
Toni Servillo plays the main character by the name of Jep Gambardella in this film, and he is a man who has been living the sweet, upper class life in Rome for almost four decades. Jep is a writer, and although he has only ever written one book, he is one of the biggest fish in the jet-set social circles of Italy. He is celebrating his 65th birthday when the film opens, but he still spends all his time partying, smoking, drinking, and going home with women half his age. His so called friends are all just as rich as himself, and even though he ought to be the happiest man in all of Rome, he is completely aware of how superficial, self absorbed and materialistic he is. It is very clear that Jep is not a happy man in spite of his wealth and social status, and when a blast from the past reopens an emotional scar that he had forgotten he had, he realises that he has not been happy for as long as he can remember.
A satiric stroke of genius:
In my opinion, this movie is absolutely brilliant and mind blowing in a lot ways, but sadly disappointing at times as well. Its main objective is to ridicule the absurdly materialistic and self important lifestyle of the characters involved, and it succeeds in doing so with flying colors, mainly because of the fact that the characters in the film are as well created as they are. Everyone seems to be a self proclaimed artist in some kind of way, and the satiric way in which they are depicted is eternally awe-inspiring and laugh out loud funny at the very same time. One character, a supposedly brilliant poet, does not utter a single word throughout the entire film. Why? Because he is "listening". Another hugely ambitious and slightly goofy character is still struggling to get his big breakthrough even though he is well into his 60's, one 30-something woman sees herself as such a talented artist that she can not decide whether she wants to be an actor, a writer or a film director, and another woman takes herself and her writing so seriously, that she almost feints whenever someone tries to critique her work. This film ridicules egocentric behavior more than any movie that I have ever seen, and I absolutely love it for doing so.
One man's battle against himself:
Unlike the people that he surrounds himself with, Jep Gambardella is an incredibly reflective and thoughtful individual. He knows exactly how superficial his lifestyle is, but lacks the ability to find a way out of it, and he knows that his one published book is a load of pretentious garbage, that people only claim to like because it makes them seem artsy and enlightened. Whenever he tries to voice his concerns about the lifestyle that they live, Jep's so called friends refuse to listen to him, and patiently wait for him to shut up, so that they can go back to drinking and acting sophisticated and important as quickly as possible. Jep is the only somewhat relatable and trustworthy character in the entire movie, and it is through him that the audience witnesses the horrifically empty lives of the people that he surrounds himself with, and through him that we become aware of the all-engulfing loneliness that this kind of life comes with.
A string of magical moments:
Even though I only saw it last night, there are some specific scenes and images from The Great Beauty that I know I will never forget for as long as live. The cinematography in the film is beyond masterful, and scenes such as the finger painting scene, the funeral scene, the botox scene, the upside-down shot during the opening party and the final few moments of the film are some of the most well directed, darkly funny, cataclysmically tragic, multi-layered and intelligently constructed sequences I have seen in all of my life. The emotional and artistic impact that I felt from watching these images reminded me why I love movies and spend so much time watching, writing, studying, reading and thinking about them as I do, and had it not been for the imperfections that I hinted at in the beginning of this review, The Great Beauty would have been my favourite movie of 2013 by a longshot. Instead, it only outclasses my current second favourite by a small amount.
A sufficient but disappointing third act:
As soon as it entered its final 35-40 minutes, the string of magical moments which I just talked about came to an end. A few characters disappeared from the story, one in a very understandable and logical way, and one in a completely weird and unsatisfying manner. As much as I hate to say it, the film never quite got back on its feet from this point on, and sort of just went on for half an hour before ending on a final, refreshingly high note. It felt as if the gas kind of just went out of the balloon a little too early, and the magical 6/5 star movie experience ended up dropping to a mere 5/5 stars in total. I was never bored or tempted to stop watching the film entirely, but that feeling of "wow, I am watching a true masterpiece!" just was not present anymore. However, The Great Beauty is still one of the most visually and emotionally pleasing films I have seen in a very long time, featuring some of the most enchanting sequences I have seen since watching "Drive" and "Mulholland Drive" for the first time, along with a phenomenal central performance that I sadly did not find the time to write about in this review. I will end this off by recommending anyone who loves film and filmmaking to watch the shit out of this movie as soon as possible, if not for the story in itself, then for the stunning visuals that I personally have not been able to stop thinking about.
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