To Rome with Love: Movie Review

To Rome with Love: Movie Review

Cast: Woody Allen, Alec Baldwin, Penelope Cruz, Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page, Greta Gerwig
Director: Woody Allen

After his recent fantastical offering in Paris, Woody Allen returns.

This time, he and an ensemble cast head to la bella Italia, Rome, for another fantasy magical comedy offering - To Rome With Love.

Visitors to and residents of Rome find their lives changed by the adventures and predicaments they find themselves in.

From Jesse Eisenberg's trainee architect, Jack, who's tempted by his girlfriend's best friend Monica (Ellen Page) to Roberto Benigni's Leopoldo, who awakes one day to find his life has been turned into that of a celebrity, chased at every turn by the paparazzi, this is a mix of farcical and the comedic, with a pinch of the serious thrown in.

Allen himself is back in his usual neurotic form as a frustrated former opera director whose daughter is engaged following a whirlwind romance to one of Rome's locals. When he heads there, he discovers his daughter's father-in-law is a talented singer - but only when he sings in the shower...

It's full of whimsy, fantasy and light heartedness - but it didn't half rub me up the wrong way. Allen seemed to be a parody of himself and all his neuroses wound up to 11; with comments like "I have an IQ of 150 - you're thinking in euros, in dollars, it's a lot less" and "Don't psychoanalyse me! Many have tried. All have failed.", it's like he's rolling out his best lines.

Like any series of stories, some fly, whereas others falter and fail, proving their flimsy coincidence is all a little too much to bear - from the farce of the newly married husband whose wife wanders off only for him to be left with Penelope Cruz's call girl and his parents thinking that's his wife, it's an intriguing mix which doesn't quite work out as well as perhaps it should.

It's a shame because Allen's eye for the beauty and majesty of Rome from behind the camera is once again magnificent - even if his writing is stereotyped and a little too farcical and fantastical to take seriously. But then, perhaps that's some of the reason for To Rome With Love - it's a postcard and declaration of amour for the city and one which will resonate with those looking for light and flouncy Woody Allen.

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