2012. Dir: Woody Allen. Starring: Woody Allen, Roberto Benigni, Alec Baldwin, Ellen Page and Penelope Cruz. ●●○○○
There's good and bad news to consider when reviewing Woody Allen's latest Eurocentric release. On the positive side it's not an offensively bad film there are a lot of nice moments of subtle amusement and clever tie ins to the history and genre of comedy and in that respect Allen has clearly carefully considered the outline of To Rome with Love. Unfortunately once the spark had been formulated it seems the creativity quickly stopped. Much has been written over the years about how Allen moves quickly from project to project without retrospection, so it's possible he had one eye on his next San Francisco set movie whilst in post, or maybe the pressure of plugging last years delightful Midnight in Paris was too much? Either way that simply isn't good enough, having some good ideas and tossing off some throwaway jokes for the characters won't make the finished project anything more than a pseud on celluloid.
There are a couple of significant milestones that take place in Woody's Italian holiday. In the first instance it appears to be the last leg of his current European tour, which started with Match Point, with it's London locale in 2005, and has since visited Barcelona, Paris and now Rome, although this was broken by his New York travesty Whatever Works, an obscene piece of misogyny masquerading as free-spirited liberality. Notably WW followed Vicky Cristina Barcelona which wowed critics and made $23m in the US box office, this allowed Woody to fund a US set film, which flopped and sent him back to his gallic backers cap in hand. So when last years Midnight in Paris took over $56m, the highest ever box office take for one of Woody's directorial efforts, he once again returned to America. This also marks the first time Woody has directed in a foreign language, sure there were snippets of Spanish in Barcelona, but the story focussed on American tourists and the language barrier was used to exclude our heroines from the action. Here half of the film is in Italian, with two of the four storylines featuring no English at all.
The film opens with a traffic policeman talking to camera, introducing the variety of life he sees from the roundabout by the Coliseum in broken, effete english. There's the American student and the Italian socialist and the absurdest clash of cultures when their prospective parents meet, there's the sex farce involving newlyweds a film star and a prostitute, there's an ordinary middle class man who will wake up one morning to find his life overturned in a satire on celebrity culture and there's wordplay and insight as an architect takes a walk down memory lane. There isn't much that connects the segments, other than mostly taking place in a public and (possibly) geographically suspect version of the eternal city. They all belong to a heightened reality, but the closest to our normal perception would be the farce, and the timeframes are all over the place ranging from a few hours to over six months. This lack of connecting tissue hamstrings the movie as a whole, as we jump from scene to scene between each competing plot it feels as unstructured as a ramdom chat with a traffic warden, meandering through four simultaneous jokes, weakening the punchlines of all of them.
The most interesting strand involves Alec Baldwin as a gifted artisan, wasting his talent on designing shopping malls, strolling though the back streets reminiscing about his gap year decades ago, when he stumbles on student Jesse Eisenberg there's a look of recognition and soon Baldwin is sagely offering advice to the lovestruck youth, torn between his live-in girlfriend Greta Gerwig (utterly wasted) and her seductive best pal Ellen Page. There's a fascinating premise hidden underneath the usual Allen mannerisms and stock characterisations concerning the emotional scripts we live by and how we're the sum of our experiences, supported by sly sarcasm mixed with genuine pathos from Baldwin. It's a shame that Eisenberg is forced to play the Allen surrogate (he even uses them in films he stars in!) and Page's actress vamp has no ultimately redeeming qualities other than her sex appeal. Although I confess Allen might be using that to underline the unreliable narrative of memory.
On the other end of the scale, in that the concept seems cliched, is the neurotic adventures of Alessandro Tiberi and Alessandra Mastronardi. Arriving for the first time in Rome, their Honeymoon also needs to double up as an interview for Tiberi, when he introduces his wife to the disapproving in-laws who run the family business (no, I don't believe it's an Olive Oil import company). When Mastronardi nips out for a haircut she gets hopelessly lost in the big city and (in a nod to classic Commedia dell'arte stories) local call girl Penelope Cruz gets drafted in to impersonate her. Hijinks ensue. As I've said before Allen should be applauded for trying something different here, but his erudite script, even when translated, is too wordy to allow the inevitable bedhopping any momentum, in spite of how hard the cast are working.
Roberto Benigni gets his chance to shine in the segment addressing the sham of celebrity, morphing from incredulous to bitterness to craving his fifteen minutes of fame with ease, but alas the segment messages are hammer home by some needlessly profound speeches from his chauffeur. Finally the segment involving Allen himself boasts a shrewdly bitchy turn from Judy Davis but the opera in the shower plot and cheap national stereotyping makes it the one to skip through on the DVD.
On the craft side there's nothing of note here, but at least there's nothing negative.
For the ideas alone this might have been a worthwhile entry in Woody Allen's canon but he fails to bring the script up to the necessary standard making this one for the fans only.
Thursday, 20 September 2012
To Rome with Love
Saturday, 15 September 2012
Worse than your parents (Out this week - 14/09/12)
I am now 35 years old, half my life has passed since I lost my cherry, and I rather hope I will still be able (and willing) to enjoy a casual 69 when I've doubled that number again, however there is strange disconnect between ourselves and our elders. When my Mother was my age I walked in on her and my Step-Father indulging in carnal activities in front of the fireplace. I was shocked, partly because they'd thrown the dog off his normal stretching place into the cold hallway whilst at it, and appalled that they did that sort of thing. I have passed that strange semi-Oedipal jealousy, in fact I'm rather glad sex is still a part of their life. That said finding out that Meryl Streep still wants to get it on may just turn me into a prude again. All of which is a roundabout way of saying the Runs Like a Gay film of the week is Hope Springs
I rather overestimated the draw of Tom Hardy last week, possibly because I spend most of my time in the company of other gay actors and we obsessively fawn over the brawny talent and lose touch with reality. Not that his bee-stung lips didn't entice some viewers into the multiplexes for Lawless (even as Summer drew it's last breath) however more were interested in seeing Judge Dredd done properly. Interestingly enough Dredd is the first 18 rated movie to get to the top of the UK charts since Saw 3D in October 2010. This weekend could see a real slug fest between the major contenders with Streep pulling in the older crowd and Ray Winstone appealing to action fans however I'm guessing that the four weeks since Brave came out means kids are anxious for a new animation and ParaNorman could sneak it's way to the top of the charts.
Hope Springs
I'm not as much of a Streepaholic as many film bloggers out there but it's hard to deny the consistent quality of her performances, even when playing the less dramatic roles. So if this romcom about revitalising a lifelong marriage to Tommy Lee Jones seems like fluff, I am sure it will have a sweet, satisfying centre.
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Read on for Italian farce from a American auteur, ghosts goings on, a race through the streets of New York and every trailer for films released this weekend.
It's a likeable unstretching trailer that tells it like it is - it's about 60 something's having sex and that's OK.
To Rome With Love
It's difficult to know what you're getting into these days when you see a Woody Allen movie. Last year we had the enjoyable romp Midnight in Paris which almost cleared away the bad memories of the appalling Whatever Works. Hopefully this latest stop on his European tour, which sounds like a series of short stories cobbled together, will be pleasing and diverting, that's all I ask.
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About Elly
After the phenomenal success of Asghar Farhadi's Oscar winning A Separation it's no surprise his recent back catalogue is also making it to British cinemas. Still set among the Iranian middle classes this film explores cultural attitudes to women after a single teacher, Elly of the title, goes missing on a trip to the seaside.
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ParaNorman
Laika entertainment have proven that stop motion animation and scaring kids is a perfect blend before with Coraline and the button eyed other mother. Whilst this anarchic pastiche may not be as startling original look out for more than a few chuckles from the trailer alone, a knock cast that includes Kodi Smit-McPhee, Anna Kendrick and Casey Affleck, and what might be a key moment in equality.
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Premium Rush
For a while this looked like the most disappointing wide release of 2012, box office wise, (that is until The Words bombed out this weekend) which is a big surprise as there's some style to this courier thriller and Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a rising star having a fantastic year with Batman and the forthcoming Looper. Maybe you just can't sexy up pushbikes no matter how hard you try. Michael Shannon co-stars.
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Snows of Kilamanjaro
Inspired by a Victor Hugo poem this French drama exposes the lengths of vengeance and obsession that we might all sometimes find ourselves at the mercy of, when an ageing couple are robbed by an acquaintance they get the taste of revenge and push for more and more punishment for their assailant.
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Barfi
Unconventional 1970's love triangle that nobly posit's that Love is blind and what you might perceive as challenges are irrelevant if you love the person deep down. Of course Ranbir Kapoor may be hearing and speech impaired but he's quite a charmer in this trailer so I can't argue with the theme.
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Keyhole
Guy Maddin's latest cinematic outing is certainly not for the faint hearted as Jason Patric, Isabella Rosselini and Udo Keir compete in an overacting competition of scene stealing in this expressionistic noir. Expect long shadows and unexplained dreams.
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Run Baby Run
It's true Inidan movies tend to come in three's these days. You get the Hindi film that will be a hit, see above, the Tamil film that doesn't bother to try, see below, and the Malayalam movie that apes Western cinematic tropes. Like this news room set thriller, which looks like a pilot for a new NBC serial.
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The Sweeney
Oddly the Orange advert which featured Ray "Regan" Winstone and Ben "Carter" Drew was far more satisfying than this over dubbed trailer which highlights all the problems of trying to bring back a half-forgotten TV franchise with 21st century levels of drugs and salacious violence.
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When the Lights Went Out
British horror that, allegedly, is based on writer/director Pat Holden's cousins and the Poltergeist that freaked them out in mid 1970's Yorkshire. Although in interviews he had candidly admitted the family were more stoical and the ghosts intent more mischievous than malevolent but where's the drama in that?
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Sundarapandinian
The trailer's not selling it I'm afraid, and that coupled with no IMDb page and no plot synopsis really halts any building enthusiasm for this Tamil action comedy starring Sasikumar.
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Twenty8K
British gangster pic that opened on Monday in a select handful of cinemas. Whether it intends to make any interesting comment on the growth of street gangs and turf wars in London remains to be seen, but it is nice to see a British film with Asian characters front and centre.
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