Director: Woody Allen
Woody Allen’s latest postcard is the least satisfying of his recent disappointments. You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger and Whatever Works, for all of their flaws, weren’t without their charms, if only for their committed casts and the comparative reliability of their laughs. To Rome With Love, on the other hand, becomes a slog in its early-goings, with few of the jokes landing unless they’re delivered by Allen himself. Structured around four subplots (as well as a pair of terribly unconvincing bookends), Allen toys with his familiar obsessions of celebrity, sex, and regret with the tone of an agreeable sitcom. What is different from his previous, better efforts is an unforgivable sloppiness in the execution, best illustrated by a late night trespassing sequence that is shockingly clumsy in its staging and dialogue (suddenly, one feels as if they were watching a filmed stageplay). Though there are pleasures in the way that Allen incorporates his familiar magical realism, his comedic premises too often overstay their welcome – during an extended opera performance in the the third act, for example, Allen prods the audience for laughter and only earns it from those who begrudgingly respect his endurance. At least exciting young actors like Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page, Greta Gerwig, and Alison Pill got a vacation in Rome out of the whole ordeal. It’s too bad that the picture brings all of the excitement of a weekend spent in a hotel in Cleveland.
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“Allen prods the audience for laughter and only earns it from those who begrudgingly respect his endurance.”
I can’t wait to see it then! haha. I found ‘You Will Meet…’ terribly dull and without many laughs so I don’t want to imagine this being more of a burden to watch.
Also, surprised you didn’t respond more positively to ‘Take This Waltz’. I found it very rewarding, especially some of the more symbolic scenes such as them swimming together.
Comment by Rishaad Moudden August 19, 2012 @ 8:32 pmI didn’t think that YMATDS worked as a whole, but there were some fragments that I did take interest in, such as the Anthony Hopkins & Lucy Punch relationship. The same can’t be said for the latest, unfortunately – everything is dead on arrival.
Take This Waltz is the most frustrating movie of the year. Sarah Polley will forever be in my good graces after Away from Her, and I do think that the final act asks a lot of questions that make a supposedly happy ending quite messy, but I found that she was suffocated by her choices in music and her penchant for using the metaphors that you speak of. You should have seen the optimism fade from my face as soon as Williams started discussing her fear of connecting flights.
Comment by Eric Fuerst August 21, 2012 @ 1:27 am