To Rome With Love
Director: Woody Allen
Actors: Jesse Eisenberg
Release Date: Monday 30th November -0001
Genre(s): Drama, Factual, Romance
Running time: 111 minutes
There are people out there who will always love Woody Allen. No matter what the New Yorker churned out they'd line the block to purchase tickets and chuckle at all the intellectual asides those of only a certain level of smarmy will get. That's not to say Allen hasn't been a sporadic genius and deservedly popular over the years - he's just coming off of the biggest hit of his career in Midnight in Paris - the reclusive director has just been far too hit and miss in the latter part of his catalogue. From Rome with Love is a whole lot of miss and very little hit.
In the usual whimsical Allen fashion, the story centres on a place with people, as opposed to people in a place. The place is the titular Rome, the people Allen himself (playing, er, himself), Alec Baldwin, Alison Pill, Jesse Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig, Penelope Cruz, Ellen Page and Roberto Benigni. Their stories range from a neurotic young man falling for his girlfriend's best buddy to a local who finds himself a celebrity and the subject of national attention for doing nothing.
There's something arrogant about From Rome with Love that's just difficult to shake. Every star name involved is pretty much there because of Allen's reputation and very few of them have much to do. The ones that are given hefty screen time (Eisenberg, Bengini) are unlikeable on a scale mostly held for Bond villains and war criminals. Baldwin in particular suffers in a thankless, odd role that never even hints at working. Then there's Allen who, naturally enough, writes himself the best lines.
Completely living off of the fumes of previously witty instalments in the Allen catalogue, there is the odd chuckle-worthy line, but for the most part this is an utter waste of time for all involved.
A lazy, gratingly indulgent comedy.
