#paolo-sorrentino

#paolo-sorrentino

And even as his work has become more personal over the past few years (his two most recent films, the autobiographical Hand of God and the highly metaphorical Parthenope, are odes to his hometown of Naples), Sorrentino hasn't lost his fondness for the surreal, the garish, the epic, the scandalous, or the big colorful sequences pulsing with music and symbolism.

Paolo Sorrentino has rediscovered his voice, his wan humour and his flair for the surreal and sensational set piece; this wintry, elegant movie is a welcome reassertion of his natural style after the facile and weirdly humourless affectations of his previous, very disappointing film Parthenope. It is a dry comedy of grief and regret which wears its dreamy melancholy and ennui like a well-tailored if fussily old-fashioned suit,