This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

I try to watch the foreign language film winners and have seen some very moving films. But this was just too languid for me. Rome looks beautiful but the people within it in this film aren't really happy and quite dismissive of it. Jep is the protagonist, a party animal who realises at age 65 his life has been quite wasted after becoming famous for one small novel written decades ago. He does interviews for newspapers and his editor is the only sympathetic character in the novel. The rest rely on drugs, sex, clothes, parties to give them satisfaction. This could make a good film but Jeb just wanders around getting sadder and sadder. Friends leave Rome, die, suffer despair. The film has some nice surreal dream sequences and beautiful views, gorgeous rooms. Sitting under the stars at night in an outdoor sitting room with sofas, tables and lights looks divine but that's the on,y bit of this film that reached me.

This is one of the most visually remarkable films I've ever seen. It captures the spirit and beauty of Rome. The camera delves into corners and crevices of the night life and the daytime of this eternal city. This is the story of a man who has debauched his way through life. At sixty-five, he begins to wonder what happened. He is highly respected for his single book (he never wrote another) and has casual friends who are more users than true companions. He hearkens back to a relationship he had earlier, where a woman he could have had, instead ends up with a close friend, who, it turns out, never made her happy. The actions of the characters are vacuous and relatively feckless. He encounters artists who are mostly show and little substance. We see self-indulgent women wasting their lives. This is certainly more about the journey than the result. The people who are most solid in this man's life are the one's he takes for granted. Death seems to be around the corner and what do we do until that happens? Does it make any difference what we do? The beauty here is all around, but is wasted on most of these people.

Paulo Sorrentino's The Great Beauty (2013) is just such a cinematic masterpiece on so many different levels.It is so lyrical in composition that I would have to call it a cinematic poem.Visually this is an extraordinarily beautiful film. The cinematography is very innovative and creative. The editing, especially the abrupt shifting into new, different scenes is radical, but skillfully done to great artistic effect. The use of lighting is very creative. The combination and blending of diverse settings ranging between the classic architecture and art of Rome, to modernistic nightclubs is just wild. There is also just such a broad palette of intriguing imagery in this film.The story is about a bon vivant , who wasted his potential to be a serious writer by spending his adult life on the upscale party circuit in Rome. After his 65th birthday, he seems to have serious doubts about the meaning of his life, and begins drifting from one scene to another, wondering about the sense of it all, until almost magically returning to the setting of his first love as a young man, where he seems to pull it all together for himself.The dialogue has some deep philosophical overtones and, generally, the film reflects on the meaning of a life spent pursuing material pleasure, as opposed to the meaning of a life spent pursuing one's own personal values. This film squarely reflects on that aspect of the human condition where, in the face of advancing age, and the prospect of impending death, one reflects on the past seeking a meaning, a significance to one's life.The whole film seemed to exude, to radiate a distinct, but unrecognizable atmosphere for me, very close to the nostalgic, and the reflective.The Great Beauty is just a classic instance of Great Art, in my opinion.

Decent, but uneven, Italian drama. A journalist/writer, Jep, turns 65 and starts to reminisce, plus ponder his life. What happens next is essentially several days in his life: his friends, interests and regrets.A movie which touches on many aspects of life: art, and how pretentious it can be, personal regret, friendship, finding meaning beauty in life. (The pretentiousness of art topic is examined with great hilarity in the scenes with the viaduct-head-butting performance artist - for me, the best passage of the movie. Quite ironic then that the movie also veers into pretentiousness from time to time).However, for all its good intentions and deeper meanings, the movie is quite uneven. There are scenes and moments of great profundity, emotion and/or humour, followed by scenes that add nothing and just seem to drag the story out. The movie is a roller-coaster ride of dullness and entertainment.Ultimately, quite watchable, with a good ending. It does require some perseverance though...Despite being far from perfect, The Great Beauty won Best Foreign Language Film at the 2014 Oscars. This despite the superb Danish film, Jagten/The Hunt, being nominated. The Hunt is a far better film. I guess the judges were sucked in by the Felliniesque style- over-substance and ode-to-Rome traits of The Great Beauty and felt obliged to give it the award. Would be sacrilegious to not give the award to a Fellini-like film...