CinemaFunk: To Rome with Love

It is tough to follow-up a critical and box office smash hit, but that is indeed what Woody Allen has had to do. Midnight in Paris became Allen’s highest grossing film, but his next project, To Rome with Love, is as convoluted as all the misses from the past decade. Featuring a large cast of talented veteran and younger actors cobbled together to present four loosely tied stories together, To Rome with Love has ambitious premises without the entertaining support one's attention. John (Alec Baldwin), a successful architect who has returned to Rome, strolls down his old stomping grounds where he studied when he was younger. Recognized by Jack (Jesse Eisenberg), John is invited to Jack's home where he is introduced to his girlfriend, Sally (Greta Gerwig). John coaches Jack regarding how to pursue his sexual interest in Monica (Ellen Page), Sally's friend who will be staying with them for a few days. Then there is Leopoldo (Roberto Benigni), an average, middle-class Roman citizen who, for no reason what-so-ever, becomes famous and must deal with the obstacles involved with instant uncanny attention. Jerry (Woody Allen) and Phyllis (Judy Davis) fly to Rome to meet their daughter Hayley’s (Alison Pill) boyfriend Michelangelo (Lavio Parenti). Jerry overhears Michelangelo’s father singing beautifully in the shower, and considers how to monetize this talent. Lastly, Antonio (Alessandro Tiberi) and Milly (Alessandra Mastronardi) have arrived in Rome to celebrate their honeymoon, but after Milly loses her cell phone they become separated in the large city, with Antonio having to deal with a Anna (Penélope Cruz), a prostitute who has been summoned to the wrong hotel room. As you can see, To Rome with Love is a mixture of four separate stories slammed together, with each plot having minimal spillover. Each story is a clever premise, yet each one fails to be anything more than just that. The stories have that Allen charm with a hint of magical realism and/or coincidence that drives much of the narrative. If only the individual stories were more solid, the film's overall plot would be more worthwhile. There is no reason at all for Leopoldo to have become famous at all, and as a reporter explains, that Leopoldo has is famous for being famous. This ahistorical idea that someone can become famous out of nowhere is rarely ever true; there is always a catalyst, of which, Leopoldo cannot seem to figure out. The storyline that includes Allen trying to coerce his daughter’s boyfriend’s father from out of the shower to sing in front of thousands goes awry quickly. The nearly universal enjoyment of singing in the shower seems to have everyone think they are can be invited into the Three Tenors, but the truth of the matter is, you are never that great. While the premise is not original, it does have Allen’s seemingly ingenious talent for visual slapstick gags, even if the some of the speed and physicality that Allen used to have is lost. John is living vicariously through Jack, who essentially has everything that John once had; studying architecture in Rome in his twenties, living on the same street, and wrapped up in a world of sexual maturity. Jack is conflicted over Monica’s arrival, he resists his sexual urge towards her, even though he know the more rational route is to remain with Sally. All the while, John dotes over Jack's shoulder as a irrational counter argument to Jack's conflict regarding his sexual attraction to Monica. To Rome with Love does have a gorgeous picture, and like Allen’s previous films, especially the ones that have been filmed and are about Europe in the past few years. The film's opening montage features static shots of Rome and the city's most beautiful sights casually set to jazz. It will not be long before we could just watch all the opening titles to an Allen film and be satisfied. With a a few clever premises, To Rome with Love is a simple film with uninspired guts that happens to have everything conveniently be tied up and payed off. Woody has seen plenty of critical success with most of his recent European films, but this most recent outing is a low-brow effort. The performances are mostly uneven with Baldwin and Eisenberg both stale and stiff. Woody himself plays a character with a lot more potential kinetic energy than Woody can actually pull off. Penélope Cruz and Alison Pill both are adorable in their roles, especially Cruz's who plays her character's occupation off with confidence and charm. The only thing that seems to tie all four vignettes together is a continuous joke revolving around the Roman tradition of giving confusing relative directions rather than absolute to non-citizens. It is a sweet way to set each of the stories in motion and present national identity to a primarily American audience. If it were not for the slew of stereotyped characters whose dialogue was from the modern era, To Rome with Love could be a lovely film, instead it becomes tired all too quickly and uninspiring throughout. For an auteur who continues to film one movie a year and is coming off his biggest hit of his lengthy seven decade career, there is still something within him that makes his worst films seemingly watchable, if even only once. Yet, we cannot take our eyes off Woody, because everyone knows that every few years, there is another Midnight in Paris around the corner. Aaron Weiss is a film critic for CinemaFunk, where this To Rome with Love movie review was originally published. Aaron has recently graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design with a Master's in Cinema Studies. When not writing about film on CinemaFunk he works as a freelance web developer.