The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
    • Shows & On demand
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureCinemaMovie reviews

The Great Beauty

The Great Beauty | Movie review
3 September 2013
Liloie Cazorla
Avatar
Liloie Cazorla
3 September 2013

Rome has never been so cruel, beautiful and nostalgic as it is in Paolo Sorrentino’s sixth feature. The Great Beauty (original title La Grande Bellezza) is a real treasure of cinematographic emotion, a perfect picture of human decadence.

Journalist Jep Gambardella arrives in Rome aged 26 with the promise of a debut novel on his mind. Nearly 40 disillusioned years later, at 65, he is finally enjoying newfound literary success, and can’t bear the decadent way of life he has settled for anymore. Actors, aristocrats, intellectuals and artists are all he has left, and they’re in bad shape, even if they party hard to pretend their lives are extraordinary.

A wonderful reflection on love, life, death and friendship, Sorrentino explores regrets and nostalgia while celebrating life anyway. It’s fascinating, funny, sad, ridiculous and always splendid, with brilliant religious and social satire thrown in. Luca Bigazzi’s cinematography embraces Rome, its antique palaces and outrageous villas, compounded by a perfect soundtrack echoing futility and absurdity.

Toni Servillo’s interpretation of Gambardella is delicious: this tremendous veteran actor convincingly casts a cynical, sentimental eye over everything and everyone around him, even himself. Both eternally amused and sad at the same time, Servillo becomes a gentleman who loves women and drinks too much, looking at the sea from his bed.

La Grande Bellezza is a movie that can’t be described because it needs to be lived. It’s current, electrifying, contemplative, disturbing, wonderful: it’s pure cinema.

Liloïe Cazorla

The Great Beauty is released nationwide on 6th September 2013.

Watch the trailer for The Great Beauty here:

Related Itemsreview

More in Movie reviews

The Queen of Black Magic

★★★★★
Musanna Ahmed
Read More

The Filmmaker’s House

★★★★★
Ella Satin
Read More

Imperial Blue

★★★★★
Guy Lambert
Read More

MLK/FBI

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

Sing Me a Song

★★★★★
Abbie Grundy
Read More

A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

Wonder Woman 1984

★★★★★
Jake Cudsi
Read More

Come Away

★★★★★
Sylvia Unerman
Read More

Murder Me, Monster

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap
  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • We Still Fax at ANTS Theatre Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Live Lab at The Yard Theatre: An interview with associate director Cheryl Gallagher
    Theatre
  • Arlo Parks – Collapsed in Sunbeams
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • The Capote Tapes
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • The Dig
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Crobar: Music When the Lights Go Out
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Green stars, two female chefs at the top and a controversially quick award: This is 2021 UK Michelin Guide during the pandemic
    Food & Drinks
  • Assassins: Exclusive new clip
    Cinema
  • Identifying Features
    ★★★★★
    Uncategorised
  • Schemers
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • Green stars, two female chefs at the top and a controversially quick award: This is 2021 UK Michelin Guide during the pandemic
    Food & Drinks
  • Identifying Features
    ★★★★★
    Uncategorised
  • Arlo Parks – Collapsed in Sunbeams
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Identifying Features
    ★★★★★
    Cinema
  • We Still Fax at ANTS Theatre Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

IC1s at Birthdays | Live review
A chat with Moya about soul, ex-boyfriends and Mick Hucknall