Popular reviews

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  Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★★ 5

  "This is my life...
  And it's nothing."

  Aptly titled, to say the least.
  Quite simply,
  A critique of,
  And an homage to,

  Everything.

  To the present,
  The past,
  The future.

  Everything.

  Sadness.
  Truth.
  Life.
  Beauty.

  Everything.

  The best comparison that I can make is if Emmanuel Lubezki and Larry David decided to collaborate on a film together in Rome.

  And the reason why this film works so well as both a comedy and also a poignant meditation on humanity is because of its perfect pacing; it is carefully constructed and meticulously organized through each scene.

  The world is a gorgeous, ugly place.

  "Beyond there is what lies beyond.
  I don't deal with what lies beyond."

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  Review by DirkH ★★★★★ 17

  Film #167 of Make me watch your favourite.
  Recommended by Alberto.

  Without a doubt one of the most beautiful looking films of 2013. And one that proves that beauty does not only go skin deep, it goes a lot further if you allow it to.

  Watching The Great Beauty was an overwhelming experience. It comes at you full force, bombarding you with sensory overloads, only to become silent and contemplative the next minute. It is whimsical, much like the city it so adores seems to be.

  Amidst all this is our seemingly hautein tour guide, who is looking for something he cannot find. Pure, unfiltered beauty and a sense purpose. With misanthropic glee he dismantles fake people around him, all…

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  Review by Jake Cole ★ 26

  I'll write fuller thoughts elsewhere, but honestly, screw this indulgent, high-and-mighty POS, with its utterly empty style undone at every turn by how above it all Sorrentino wants everyone to know he is. Comparisons to Rossellini, Antonioni and Fellini seem to have the most superficial understanding of what those directors brought to their movies, as well as how invested they were in their work (even Antonioni), how willing they were to either implicate themselves in moral failure (Fellini) or to try and show, in vastly differing ways, how to find a new morality and existential position (Rossellini and Antonioni). Even Antonioni's ostensible remove serves to illustrate not the emptiness of the modern world but the inability of characters to recognize…

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  Review by davidehrlich ★★★½ 3

  this... was a lot of movie. i feel jet-lagged.

  one thing is for certain: best soundtrack of the year.

  will revisit when Criterion releases the blu-ray next year (if i don't revisit sooner).

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  Review by Steven Sheehan ★★★★½ 17

  The Great Beauty is a gorgeous ode to the towering city of Rome, a love letter straight from the heart of Paolo Sorrentino, written through tears of joy that garnish the wet ink. The director composes a symphony of pure affection, full of memories that make and break a life lived in a city that continues to thrive on such gracious charm and illustrious history.

  Life in Rome is seen through the eyes of writer Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo) a one-off successful novelist who never fulfilled his potential, choosing instead to live a decadent lifestyle amongst the rich and famous, giving himself to a life of partying. Now at 65 he begins to see a different view from inside his…

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  Review by Nick ★★★★½ 1

  The Great Beauty is Paolo Sorrentino's dazzling love letter to Rome, to the Italian filmmaking predecessors, and to a long gone past one simply cannot get back. Continuing the undying spirits of La Dolce Vita and La Notte, The Great Beauty echos the everlasting theme of upper class reflection, with never before willingness to confide in and resonate with a general audience, Italian or not.

  If the party scene in La Notte is electric, Sorrentino has successfully created its modern day counterpart in the beginning of The Great Beauty, where the high life of rich Italian certainly retains the same level of splendor and decadence decades later. Jep Gambardella, a senior writer of fame, dances the night away, leaving his…

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  Review by theriverjordan ★★★★★ 21

  The sacred and the profane decay into the sacred and the bored in Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Great Beauty.” 

  The film stars Sorrentino ally Toni Servillo as a novelist turned culture journalist. At one point in life, he shaped national identity with his art. Now, he can only comment upon it.

  “Beauty” is so thematically and structurally similar to Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vida,” it is less a dialogue with the work than one that continues the same speech, decades later. Where once Rome was filled with worship of false idols, it is now only full of the idle. 

  Sorrentino stacks these references visual and spiritual to films of Fellini and Rossellini throughout “Beauty.” They ring with vibrations that are sacred,…

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  Review by Patrick Brennan

  Answers the age old question, "what if La Dolce Vita wasn't good?"

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  Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★½

  The Great Beauty is a supplely directed social parody that’s co-written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino. It observes journalist Jep Gambardella (portrayed by Toni Servillo) who, after his sixty-fifth birthday, discovers himself misplaced between memories of the past and the anxieties of the time ahead. The movie rotates with surrealism while at the same time dispenses a level of deep sadness on a midlife crisis. The narrative is intoxicatingly immersive in its splendidness and fittingly won the best foreign-language Oscar at the 86th Academy Awards. This is a tremendous metaphorical reflection on mortality, and of valuable time squandered.

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  Review by Nakul ★★★★★

  "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. After all... it's just a trick. Yes, it's just a trick."

  An instant favorite. So overwhelmed. The Great Beauty is cinematic therapy by a director in full control of his medium. Sorrentino somewhat abandoned narrative here, instead he's capturing moments, day to day experiences, fragmented memories and emotions. A total vibe movie about self-discovery and the different ways in which beauty can enter one’s life. The photo exhibition scene truly got me choked up.

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  Review by Larry ★★★★½ 11

  I'm not a misogynist, I'm a misanthrope.

  Beauty kills.

  Such is the case for an unfortunate tourist who, at the beginning of La Grande Bellezza, takes one sweeping look over the tops of Rome, only to keel over and die.

  The shocking opener sets the tone for the rest of the grand, extravagant film, and this slight touch of absurdism squirts a little twist of Fellini on the tongue that hangs around for its two and a half hour runtime of debauchery, beauty, and immense human tragedy.

  Le Grande Bellezza is as close as we are going to get to the masterpieces of old here in the year 2013/2014. I'm not under the impression that its an entirely perfect film,…

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  Review by Jonathan White 35

  Now I know what people who hate Malick's To The Wonder feel like.

  Unfinished and unrated. Took a break after the party scene, for both technical and artistic appreciation reasons. Resumed .. within 5 minutes nuns are wrapping a naked woman's head in guase. As she stands we see she has flaming red pubic hair, even though she's a brunette. She then runs, head first, into a stone wall. Witnessed by an admiring crowd, and overseen from above by our protagonist.

  Subtle, it's not.