To Rome with Love (**)

As its title suggests, Woody Allen’s paean to the Eternal City falls on the frivolous side of his oeuvre. Using the bookending device of a narrating traffic officer, he introduces to not one but four unconnected stories. In one, Woody Allen plays a kvetchy maestro who thinks his daughter’s prospective father-in-law, heard singing opera in the shower, might be a star in the making. In another, Roberto Begnini plays an office clerk bewildered by his sudden celebrity. This is one of two storylines with no American characters; in the other, newlyweds get separated; she meets celebrities and he meets a prostitute (Penélope Cruz) who mistakes him for a client.

Finally, in the only all-American story, architect Jesse Eisenberg meets an architect he idolizes (Alec Baldwin), then falls for his girlfriend’s (Greta Gerwig) visiting pal (Ellen Page), a flighty actress, even though an imaginary version of Baldwin’s character keeps telling him she’s bad news. What’s worse is that she’s really irritating, so it seems completely contrived that he would find her irresistible.

Unfortunately, “contrived” pretty much describes this movie as a whole, which seems like a grab bag of featherweight ideas Woody had lying around. The Roberto Begnini segment is of course intentionally contrived and is a mildly amusing critique of media-created celebrity. Judy Davis, playing the wife who has to put up with Allen’s character, is pretty amusing, but the segment itself is silly. There are a few decent one-liners, but even those are sort of predictable. (Woman admiring Michelangelo’s ceiling on the Sistine Chapel: “Can you imagine working on your back like that?”; prostitute (Cruz): “I can.”)


Allen’s last European adventure, Midnight in Paris, was also lightweight, but was sometimes clever and had characters worth watching, so its unexpected box-office success made sense. Notwithstanding some good opera singing and nice footage of tourist sites, this is easily his worst movie since Hollywood Ending.

IMDb link

viewed 7/21/12 12:20 pm at Ritz 5 and reviewed 7/21/12