REVIEW

To Rome With Love

— So you can take the auteur out of Manhattan, but can you take the Manhattan out of the auteur?

If nothing else, Woody Allen’s continuing cinematic European Vacation Tour has proved the venerable filmmaker can locate his muse quite happily in Western Europe at least (though I’m not sure the world is ready for Woody in Belgrade, exactly). In his latest effort, he replaces his signature opening-credit ragtime with a full-bodied version of “Volare” and Central Park with a comely Roman piazza.

The characters - neurotic, self absorbed and yearning for something different in their lives - are largely unchanged, of course, but you can’t expect the man to start over from scratch. To be fair, that’s never been Woody’s bag, exactly.He explores similar themes and tropes in every film, which, to his fans, is considered part of his charm, and, with his detractors, a reason he has become largely irrelevant.

Here, we have a patchwork of stories with different sets of characters. There’s really no way to condense the action, so we’ll just dive right in: A young American (Alison Pill) meets a handsome Italian man (Flavio Parenti) and becomes engaged, eventually bringing over her neurotic parents (Allen and Judy Davis), including her father, a former classical music producer, who becomes transfixed by his daughter’s soon to be father-in-law’s singing voice; a young newlywed couple from the countryside (Alessandro Tiberi and Alessandra Mastronardi) get separated from each other and have their own dreamlike adventures, the husband with a gorgeous prostitute (Penelope Cruz), the wife with a suave superstar Italian actor (Antonio Albanese); an American architecture student (Jesse Eisenberg) living in Rome with his girlfriend (Greta Gerwig) falls madly in love with her best friend (Ellen Page), a sexy actress from New York, against the wishes of his partly ethereal mentor (Alec Baldwin), who follows everyone around and comments on their misbehavior; and finally, we have a rather dull, average Italian family man (Roberto Benigni) who wakes up one morning to discover he’s suddenly become wildly famous, beset with paparazzi and gorgeous models at every turn.

It’s clear that Woody’s sense of place - always one of his strengths - is not simply confined to his native New York. Rome is shot superbly; the gorgeous ruins and glowing sunsets on the cobblestone streets are every bit as intoxicating as his infamous Panavision black and-white opening shots to Manhattan.

As always, he has availed himself a fine cast, willing to work for scale in order to appear in one of his features (if American actors had bucket lists that would be near the top), and there are certainly moments where his slightly surreal presentments work their magic - in many ways, the film, with its flights of nonlinearity and playful storytelling, is like a series of highly literate Twilight Zone episodes. But there doesn’t seem to be much of a spark to the proceedings. As beautiful as the city is, and as well equipped as his stars, there remains something very unsatisfying about the picture, like a beautiful looking marinara sauce that turns out to be from a jar.

As for Woody himself, it’s a very mixed bag. White-haired and clearly laboring to find the right comic timing on his standard one-liners, his character feels more forced than is altogether comfortable. Even as the great Davis keeps lobbing softballs to him, he’s unable to make solid contact. I can’t say he’s totally slipping, exactly, but there are times you almost wince at the screen. As for his particular screen story - it turns out the singing future father-in-law can only perform properly in the shower, which leads to an interesting reimagining of Pagliacci - this is first time I can ever recall him blatantly stealing a plot device from an episode of The Flintstones.

To Rome With Love 81 Cast: Woody Allen, Penelope Cruz, Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page, Greta Gerwig, Alison Pill, Judy Davis, Alec Baldwin, Flavio Parenti, Roberto Benigni Director: Woody Allen Rating: R, for some sexual references Running time: 102 minutes

MovieStyle, Pages 33 on 07/06/2012

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