Synopsis
Jep Gambardella has seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades, but after his 65th birthday and a shock from the past, Jep looks past the nightclubs and parties to find a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.
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Cast
- Toni ServilloJep Gambardella
- Carlo VerdoneRomano
- Sabrina FerilliRamona
- Carlo BuccirossoLello Cava
- Iaia ForteTrumeau
- Pamela VilloresiViola
- Galatea RanziStefania
- Franco GraziosiConte Colonna
- Sonia GessnerContessa Colonna
- Giorgio PasottiStefano
Recommendations
- 100
The Telegraph
A shimmering coup de cinema to make your heart burst, your mind swim and your soul roar. - 100
The Guardian
This movie looks and feels superb, it is pure couture cinema. But there is also a excess of richness and bombast and for all its sleekness I felt that the spark of emotion was being hidden, and there is a kind of frustration in the operatic sadness. - 100
Time Out London
It’s an exploration of all things surface, yes, but it has soul too. - 90
Variety
Sorrentino continues to tackle major topics using an extraordinary combination of broad brushstrokes and minute detail. Passion via the intellect has become his trademark, well suited to this dissection of empty diversions, indulged in by latter-day Neros fiddling while Rome burns. - 80
The Hollywood Reporter
Though Sorrentino’s vision of moral chaos and disorder, spiritual and emotional emptiness at this moment in time is even darker than Fellini’s...he describes it all in a pleasingly creative way that pulls audiences in through humor and excess. - 80
Total Film
Splashes of overstatement aside, the ambition intoxicates. - 77
Film.com
Gambardella’s world-weary look back at his sweet life, eclipsed by his turning sixty-five, is a dizzying fantasia of flash and filigree, and what it lacks in direct narrative is well patched-over with frenetic and emotion-rich sequences. This movie is a sight and sound workout. - 75
The Playlist
La Grande Bellezza washes over you in series of scenes, visages, sensations and impressions, and although in this case it doesn't quite gel into a cohesive whole, it's nonetheless a journey worth taking; a travelogue through memory and dreams, in which life is greatest fiction we could ever create.
