La Grande Bellezza...

or, The Great Beauty is a blisteringly good film about an elegant 65 year old Roman journalist specialising in art, culture and the ocassional catty put down. Rome looks, well, ravishing if a little wrinkled at the edges not unlike Jep himself. An event from the past reaches out to shake Jep's urbane cool and we then follow this quizical comical man who likes to party but wearies of partying. A living saint arrives in Rome whom Jep has to interview but instead she sleeps on his floor. Sipping coffee on his balcony the following morning amidst a gathering of strutting and preening pink flamingoes this dessicated diva archly suggests to Jepp that what he might lack is roots. Watching in astonishment Jep wonders if she might be right.