To Rome with Love
Dir: Woody Allen
2012
***
I'm right down the middle with Woody Allen's To Rome with Love. It's an apt name, as this is his love letter to classic Italian cinema, leaning ever so slightly towards Federico Fellini more than others though (The White Sheik anyone?). The film is split into 4 different shorter films. The 'Singing in the Shower' film that is the one that Allen himself stars in is great. The supporting cast weren't anything to write home about but Allen and Fabio Armiliato are both very funny. I'm one to find Allen's performances annoying at the best of times but he doesn't overdo it here, letting Fabio Armiliato take centre stage and quite rightly so. The shower scenes on stage had me in stitches, it was very funny and Allen at his best. The second film I liked was the one with Roberto Benigni and his 'Sudden celebrity status'. Roberto Benigni doing even the mundane day to day tasks is watchable, he can make anything funny. It was lovely to see him on screen again and in this film Allen captures a part of Italian Cinema that I also adore. Unfortunately, those two films are marred by the other two, far inferior films. The Penélope Cruz film was a copy of Fellini's The White Sheik among others. I appreciated seeing Cruz in that red dress but nothing else about the film worked, especially the fact that none of it makes sense. The days pass and the characters are still doing the same things, the continuity goes straight out the window and I think Italian cinema deserves more credit and that goes for the stereotyping as well! The last film is my least favourite (I say last, they all interweave, one at a time would have been better). In many ways Jesse Eisenberg and Ellen Page are the perfect match. They are both the most annoying people in cinema working today (not to mention over rated). They never convince and are poorly cast, he is far from the young Allen people think he is and she is no object of affection. I liked Alec Baldwin's role although like others, I have no idea what or who he was supposed to be. Greta Gerwig is brilliant but is totally underused which left me baffled. So all in all, I'm right down the middle. I've never loved and hated a movie at the same time as much as I have here. It's better than You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger but it's no Vicky Cristina Barcelona.