History Film / TheGreatBeauty

** His interview with [[TrueArtIsIncomprehensible ludicrous performance artist]] Talia Concept swiftly degenerates into one when Jep tries to ask her what her art is about and she's unable to explain.

* CharacterFilibuster: Cardinal Bellucci is always ready to change the subject of the conversation to cite recipes of various dishes. Pushed UpToEleven as he doesn it more than one or two times.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: All of whom have at least some significance for the plot.

* NotSoDifferent: When Stefania says that her life is full as she has a husband and four kids of whom she takes care as well as an active social position Jep invokes this trope.

* ImpoverishedPatrician: The count and countess of Colonna. So much that they are hired at the parties where the presense of aristocrates is needed. However they are generally ready to be hired as counts Colonnas while some host wants to hire them under the name of the count and countess Odescalchi. The problem is, there is a centuries-long feud between the Colonna and Odescalchi families...

* YourCheatingHeart: It is implied that Lello Cava (a rich toy trader) regularly cheats on his wife with the street hookers as they do not shy from soliciting him as he drives near them with his wife in the same car.

* SeriousBusiness: Andrea takes literature including Turgenev and Creator/MarcelProust much more seriously than an average person. Their quotes about death haunt him. He also says that if he should not take Turgenev and Proust seriously then he does not see whom or what he should take seriously. Jep says that Andrea needs to treat seriously only the restaurant menu.

----> '''Egidio''' I'm nearly 70 and I have to work till 6 in the morning every day. I swapped cocaine for heroin 15 years ago. What an asshole! A heroin junkie at 50!

----> '''Jep''' I was looking for the great beauty, but... I didn't find it.

---->'''Viola''': Andrea... You're crazy.
---->'''Andrea''': No, mom, I'm not crazy! I've got problems.

----> '''Lello Cava''': Actually, my wife and I are the only couple in Italy who are in love.

---->'''Jep''': What job you do?
---->'''Orietta''': Me? I'm rich.
---->'''Jep''': Great job.

----> '''Talia Concept''' You are an obsessive jerk! I'll tell your editor to send me a journalist of a higher stature.
----> '''Jep''' A piece of advice: when you speak to my editor, go easy on the stature business. She's a dwarf, you know.

---->'''Jep''': Stefania, mother and woman. You're 53, with a life in tatters, like the rest of us. Instead of acting superior and treating us with contempt, you should look at us with affection. We're all on the brink of despair, all we can do is look each other in the face. Keep each other company, joke a little...

* OlderThabTheyLook: In-universe. Jep Gambardella celebrates his 65th birthday while Tony Servillo was in his early fifties during the shooting of the film. In fact the character hardly looks 65 being somewhere between actual 52 of Servillo and declared 65 of Gambardella.

---->'''Ramona''' How come you have all these keys?
---->'''Stefano''' Because... I'm a trustworthy person.

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Given his incisive and witty nature, Jep is quite good at these;

---> '''Dadina''': Nobody's fit for shit, dammit. Take it from the queen of misfits.

----> "There could be no doubt, either, as to the miserable designs of Malagna. The girl should be rescued therefore at any cost and without loss of time."

---->'''Jep''': The catering's gone downhill.
---->'''Stefano''': Rome's gone downhill.

---->'''Stefania''': Rome is the only city in the world where Marxism has truly existed. You can't excel over others for more than a week, you're immediately brought back to mediocrity. Rome is pure collectivism. Pure collectivism.
---->'''Jep''': Stefania, what utter nonsense! Do you know that Flaubert wanted to write a book about nothing? If he'd met you, we'd have had a great book, what a shame!

-- '''[[CaptainObvious Jep Gambardella]]'''
->"When I came to Rome at the age of 26, I fell pretty swiftly, almost without realising it, into what might be defined as the whirl of the high life. But I didn't just want to live the high life. I wanted to become its king. I didn't just want to go to parties. I wanted to have the power to make them a failure."\\

** Fanny Ardant who is addressed by Jep by her real-life name.

* YoungerThanTheyLook:
** Suor Maria was played by an actress who was not even 70 at the time.
** Also Jep himself celebrates his 65th birthday while Tony Servillo was in his early fifties during the shooting of the film.

* HiddenDepths: Suor Maria, the elderly saint is in fact an admirer of the novelette by Jep Gambardella.

* ImpossibleTask: Suor Maria should climb the Scala Sancta (Holy Stairs) on her knees. It has many steps but of course the saintly nun succeeds in doing it.

* AntiHero: Jep is a very complicated case who must indeed be described the best by this trope.

* BittersweetEnding: The ending is closest to that. Jep lost several of his friends in the course of the plot. However [[spoiler:it is hinted that Jep might be ready to start writing his second novel.]]

* CallBack: Jep first asks in the lift his mysterious and taciturn neighbour whether his suit is tailored by Catellani. The latter does not condescend to answer. In the end of the second act as he is arrested he loosens up. He then very belatedly replies that he prefers Rebecchi to Catellani as Catellani does not have too much brushed fabrics lately.

* CharacterFilibuster: Cardinal Bellucci is always ready to change the subject of the conversation to various recipees. Pushed UpToEleven as he doesn it more than one or two times.

* CloudCuckoolander: Cardinal Bellucci who is always eager to recite the recipees of various dishes.

* HugeGuyTinyGirl: Sebastiano Paff is very tall while Dadina played by Giovanna Vignola is a dwarf.
* IJustWantToBeNormal: Carmelina is exploited by her parents who force her to make action paintings so that they can earn huge money for themselves as well as for her. The teenager has a more mundane dream, she intends to become a vet doctor.

** Ramona wears a red gown when she meets Jep. He is immediately impressed.
** Previously Orietta wears a red dress. Jep goes with her to her place, has sex with her but then makes a stealth bye.

* LipstickLesbian: At the party it turns out that Viola is the one as she makes out with a girl during their dance.

* TheMissionary: Viola, the mother of Andrea, becomes the one after he commits suicide.

** Stefania wrote 11 novels and a book on her Party's history. Jep states that everything written by her is atrocious.

* BrickJoke: An omnipresent trop for this film. Many later scenes with episodic characters are actually callbacks to their previous scenes. They build on the things states earlier.