You can find beauty in the most mundane things, if you look closely enough.
—-Paolo Sorrentino

The other day I watched “The Great Beauty” on the Criterion Channel and really enjoyed it.

So today, desperate for some entertainment I decided to return to the Criterion Channel and watch another of director Paolo Sorrentino’s creations, this time his first movie, “One Man Up“.

It’s the story of the rise and fall (mostly fall) of two men with the same name, Antonio Pisapia. One is a popular singer and the other an up and coming football (soccer) player. They live separate, yet nearby, lives and their stories overlap and echo each other in strange and interesting ways.

Their downfall is caused by the usual sins, sex, drugs and stubbornness. You can’t really say they don’t deserve what happens to them, but you are rooting for… at least their redemption if not their return to their early success (which doesn’t seem possible).

One does, in the end, find some sort of peace with himself while the other one… doesn’t.

I won’t tell you which is which.

The movie is gorgeous, sexy, and has some wonderful seafood. It’s Italian, in other words.