The Great Beauty

The good life has featured heavily in Italian cinema, and in covering the glittering social life of Rome, director Paolo Sorrentino is treading bravely in the footsteps of Federico Fellini and his legendary film La Dolce Vita. Luckily, Sorrentino has an original, wryly humorous style that frequently comes to the fore during a serpentine 140 minutes in the company of jaded journalist Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo). Jep embarks on a series of reporting assignments just as some sad news reaches him that reminds him of his promising youth as a novelist. As far as the storyline goes, that's pretty much it. But there's real richness in the episodic nature of Jep's endeavours, whether meeting an idiotic performance artist, a celebrated pre-teen painter, or dancing the conga at the latest chic niterie. Jep absorbs it all with a dry smile and this good-humoured cynicism makes him the perfect guide for a VIP tour of a secret, horribly fashionable world that one wouldn't want to linger in yet can't help but find fascinating.