The Great Beauty ~ Film Review

by: Uel Ceballos

Watching “The Great Beauty” is visually and psychologically nourishing as it makes you feel like travelling to a world that embodies the full elements of humanities. The title itself strongly speaks for what the movie is all about and it will never fail your expectations. The film is the great beauty itself. I’ve seen lots of other movies that feature Italy, particularly the Rome with all its exquisiteness and extreme majesty. But none had given me that strange overwhelming sensation over such a splendour beauty. None had hit me with such effect until Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Great Beauty”.

The film is focused to Jep Gambardella, a journalist who has just celebrated his 65^th birthday. He’s a socialite who had once written a famous novel during his twenties but nothing follows after then. He works writing cultural columns and engaging himself to nightly parties. Upon reaching his 65^th year, Jep has finally come into this sort of rethinking things over and looking back to the past events of his life. Jep is undergoing into this stage that everyone of his age is experiencing – assessing his life which eventually give way to the transformations of views and beliefs, paving the path to new realizations. This is the sort of movie that will make you look deeper into your own life just as Jep did, regardless of your age at the moment. Paolo Sorrentino has inspired a story of an ageing journalist and socialite, incorporating it to the soul-searching process of an individual which occurs through the interwoven accounts with the various beauties of life.

Jep Gambardella, in spite of what he has become, of what status he has achieved through all his hard works, is still feeling unfulfilled. He’s maybe a socialite who sleeps at hours wherein the ordinary people are already waking up, a 65 year old man who was adopted by Rome and showered by its magnificence, a man who had established his name in literature after a successful novel, but Jep Gambardella is missing something and he has finally come into that sense to look for that mislaid piece.

If you’re an artist or you love arts and appreciate it in its various forms and aspects then you’re going to love this movie to bits. The Great Beauty showcases Rome in its finest gorgeousness and mystifying works of arts that flowed in undeniable opulence. In truth, everybody can do that, incorporating a potential story with the intention to exhibit the elegance of the city – the Rome itself is already a sumptuous element that would make up for a classy remarkable film. However, Paolo Sorrentino had executed it in the most unique way, weaving the film with dazzling visuals, striking score, extraordinary performances and unusual sequence of events that would make you all eyes and ears to the movie. The film consists of flashback series as Jep remembers his past which mainly comprises of his first love and his struggles to understand life in its most complicated nature.

Paolo Sorrentino has given the film an enigmatic central character and he has assigned it to Toni Servillo who did an absolutely knockout performance. ­Toni Servillo’s acting has moved me. He had played well the inscrutable character of Jep Gambardella – incomprehensible at some moment, sometimes going blank at all and then all of a sudden, the emotion will outburst from totally zero level to 100% of deliverance. Imagine witnessing such unexpected turn of scene with the poignant soundtrack and stirring acting performance that evokes mixed emotions from the audiences’ part. It’s hard to completely illustrate the film’s magnificence through words alone, unless you see it yourself that’s the only time you’ll fully understand what I’m saying. Everything in the film speaks of beauty, from the stunning visuals, haunting breed of modern classical music and stirring techno-pop, to awe-inspiring cinematic techniques, The Great Beauty is absolutely one of the greatest movies of its time!

So there, let’s cheer on it with the perfect 10 of Espresso Shots!