"[8][9][10][11][12] Jep Gambardella is a 65-year-old seasoned journalist and theater critic, a fascinating man, mostly committed to wandering among the social events of a Rome immersed in the beauty of its history and in the superficiality of its inhabitants today, in a merciless contrast.
Jep is surrounded by several friends: Romano, a playwright who is perpetually on the leash of a young woman who exploits him; Lello, a mouthy and wealthy toy seller; Viola, a wealthy bourgeois and mother of a son with serious mental problems named Andrea; Stefania, a self-centred radical chic writer; Dadina, the dwarf editor of the newspaper where Jep works.
Philippe Ridet, Rome correspondent for Le Monde, criticized the film in Internazionale while supporting the perspectives of journalists from La Stampa, Raffaella Silipo and Gianni Riotta:[13] The victory of Italy?
The article, dedicated to beauty, followed the death of Umberto Eco:[14] Philippe Ridet’s vision taints the intelligence of the peninsula with grotesque and superficial tones, reducing Italy to the idea of celebrating its own decadence.
His statement, drawn from his article 'Italy laughs at seeing itself in the mirror of La Grande Bellezza,' stereotypes the average Italian as a Griffolino d’Arezzo from Dante’s Divine Comedy, a character full of airs despite his infernal placement.
Or rather, more profoundly, was his focus on the modern and worldly frenzy that seduces, beguiles, entices, and then leaves one burdened with a handful of shattered, cursed dreams?
The fact that a film like La Grande Bellezza can be interpreted as a limited picture of Italian issues smells, to borrow expressions from journalist Marco Travaglio, of rhetoric and provincialism.
Why is it that a work about moral decay, such as Petronius’s Satyricon, describing animalistic instincts and dissoluteness, is interpreted as a reflection on a vicious, savage humanity, rather than a critical portrayal of the dissolute realities of Pozzuoli and Crotone?Tiziano Peccia, "Critica e critiche alla grande bellezza," O Olho da História, Issue 22 (April 2016) If only La grande bellezza were content to be a bad movie.
Or, on the contrary, with great appreciation:[16] This tribute to the Capital, signed by Paolo Sorrentino, is a disorganized, opulent, fragmentary, and shameless film, but also one so beautiful it will move you to tears.
This contrast of opinions has been interpreted in various ways,[17] but in negative evaluations, it seems to reconnect with the recurring notion of the director's presumed arrogance and ambition to propose his vision, almost as if it were a sequel to La dolce vita by Federico Fellini,[18] which instead resonates with the imagination of international audiences who appreciate this portrayal.
He likened it to Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City and Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita in its ambition to record a period of Roman history on film.
[21] Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter stated "Sorrentino's vision of moral chaos and disorder, spiritual and emotional emptiness at this moment in time is even darker than Fellini's (though Ettore Scola's The Terrace certainly comes in somewhere).
"[22] Critics have also identified other purposefully explicit film homages: to Roma, 8½,[23] Scola's Splendor,[citation needed] Michelangelo Antonioni's La notte.