Probably not for everyone, but I loved it

Rating: 9/10 (5 January 2016)

I'm not sure if the parts of this film make a great sum, but all the parts sure are fantastic! I quite loved this bizarre little film from the director of The Great Beauty. In fact, I liked it more than The Great Beauty, which I also liked a lot. Michael Caine stars as a retired composer/conductor who is spending a week at a ritzy Swiss spa. His longtime best friend, Harvey Keitel, a still-working film director, is also there. There isn't a strong plot here, more a series of vignettes, but much of Caine's plot revolves around an emissary from Queen Elizabeth II trying to get him to come back from retirement to play a concert for Prince Philip's birthday. Keitel is working on his new film with a slew of young, hipsterish writers. Other subplots involve Caine's daughter, Rachel Weisz, dealing with her husband's leaving her, and Paul Dano plays an actor who's a little peeved he's best known for playing a robot in "that robot movie." There are other little subplots, although I'd more call them just weird characters wandering around the spa. Sorrentino obviously wants to be the heir to Fellini, and he's doing a pretty good job of it. This film doesn't feel as much like Fellini as The Great Beauty did, but he has Fellini's eye for casting wonderful weirdos to populate his movies. In particular, I'm totally in love with Caine's masseuse, the gal with the braid and the braces, played by Luna Zimic Mijovic, whom we get to watch dance along to a video game a couple of times and it's just heavenly. Both Caine and Keitel are wonderful. Weisz gets to steal the film for one big monologue, though she's great for the rest of it, too. I don't know if I entirely get it, but I loved it, and it's one of the best of the year.