Getting laughs at the expense of performance artists is low hanging fruit in popular film. In order to establish early on the wit and lovability of our well-groomed slacker hero Jep, we have to see what he sees too -- the performance before the interview. But the interview! Mama mia.
Paolo Sorrentino's La Grande Bellezza is a funny movie for someone like me, someone approaching Jep's age. The last movie I saw where I felt a similar connection to the lead was Alex Payne's Sideways (2004), though the better double-feature would be LGB and The Big Lebowski (1998), which also features a performance artist.
I mentioned to my friend Christine, a veteran film and TV producer, that I had just started watching LGB while recovering from the flu, and that it was not making me forget Fellini. She texted to say that LGB was among her all-time Top-10, and that she watches it at least once a year. Twenty minutes later I texted back that this is indeed a very funny film, verging on wise, and that despite certain reservations, it is growing on me.
One of those reservations, shared with her at the 1hr 50 min mark of this 2hr 22 min film, is Jep's relationship with women -- that the only women spared his acid tongue are a dwarf and an exotic dancer. That the dwarf supplies him his income (his editor) and the dancer companionship (a platonic love interest) is telling, but of course subject to change in these final 32 minutes, which I intend to get to -- tonight!
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