Paolo Sorrentino

Jep Gambardella moves through Roman high society with enough charm to make his wasted evenings look inviting. In The Great Beauty (2013), Paolo Sorrentino gives Toni Servillo a journalist and stalled author who is increasingly troubled by the life he has made. We were moved by Jep’s unease, because Servillo keeps the hurt visible beneath his charm. Sorrentino understands why this man stays at the party, and that sympathy is the film’s strength.

Faded ambition was already a concern in One Man Up (2001), his first feature and the beginning of the Servillo partnership. The precise, atmospheric style of The Consequences of Love (2004) brought notice, and Il Divo (2008) widened his reputation. The Hand of God (2021), a semi-autobiographical film set in Naples, turns towards more personal material. Parthenope (2024) keeps Naples in view while shifting the attention towards female experience.

Cinematographer Luca Bigazzi is central to the appeal: their recurring collaboration favours long, mobile takes, saturated colour and carefully composed images. Those images make the luxurious surroundings worth looking at, so we understand the attraction before the film asks us to question it. Sorrentino’s eclectic use of existing music also lets a scene change mood or become funny without another speech. The formal, often aphoristic dialogue is less reliable. Too many people sound ready to deliver a judgement, and too few seem likely to listen.

The screenplay for The Great Beauty, written with Umberto Contarello, shows how easily Sorrentino can overdo the mockery. The quieter passages give Jep room to be troubled; the broader satire supplies acquaintances whose vanity is apparent almost as soon as they arrive. We know what is wrong with these people well before the parties finish demonstrating it. Several encounters could be shorter, and the film would lose little except repetition. Start with The Great Beauty, provided a few overlong parties will not spoil the evening.