Maybe
Woody Allen shouldn’t make a movie every year? Judging from his latest film, To
Rome With Love, it now takes him longer to make one of
acceptable quality. To Rome With Love is simple-minded instead of
charming, clichéd instead of sophisticated and slightly less Italian than The
Olive Garden. Oh, it’s not funny.
The film has four plots, none of which
intersect. One involves Roberto Benigni as an average man who wakes up and -
for no reason - is world-famous. It’s a premise that can be treated any number
of ways: from a Thurber-esque fable to a Kafka-esque nightmare. Instead, we get
an extended sketch about reporters in Benigni’s bathroom and it stops – it
doesn’t end – when, with equal randomness, he’s no longer famous. Ahh, but
Woody must have a lot of insight into the perks and perils of fame. I’m sure he does. He should use them sometime.
Alec
Baldwin plays a wise, older man giving advice about women to Jesse Eisenberg,
who may – in some fashion – be his younger self. Seems like a rich vein for
Woody Allen to mine, but he commits – shockingly – a freshman mistake in
writing. He doesn’t know who the main character is. Is
it Eisenberg, who reacts to the presence of a sexy visitor in the home he
shares with his girlfriend? Baldwin, who drifts in and out, sounding wise, but not saying anything
specific or consequential? Or is it Ellen Page, the
(supposedly) sexy visitor. Her arrival – and abrupt departure – seem to
define the action, but otherwise seems tangential to the other characters and
their relationships.
The third leg
supporting this wobbly buffet is a sketch (they’re all sketches even if they
last twenty-five minutes) about a newlywed groom caught in a compromising
position – it’s a misunderstanding – with a prostitute played by Penelope Cruz.
The fourth is a one-joke riff so weak that
it has to be propped up before Woody Allen can beat it to death: a man who
sounds like an opera star in the shower becomes an opera star by singing in the
shower – on stage! Get it? The shower is on stage and the
audience
goes wild! What’s more - this will kill you - he’s played by a real
opera singer! By the way, the entire movie takes place in Rome. You can tell
because the Coliseum is in the background. To make it even more Roman, it
begins with an offscreen car crash because they’re such bad drivers. (Those
crazy Italians!) The title, To Rome With Love, was clearly a marketing decision: it’s short, easy to say and
mentions the client’s name in a positive way. That had to be the reason he chose
it. Making a play on the title, From Russia With Love,
stopped being clever in 1963. Okay, 1964.
Last year’s Midnight in Paris,
on the other hand, had real charm and more than
a dose of sophistication. It was imbued with
Parisian history and culture. Why the difference? Maybe he likes Paris more than
Rome? He definitely seems more engaged by French art and music, devoting entire
movies to them. To Rome With Love, on the other hand, opens with “Volare,”
a song that – even ironically – should not be used again until 2058. The point
is – Woody Allen seemed to care more about his last movie more than his current
one. Why? Even if he’s killing time or financing his vacation – a
tax-deductible one at that – he should care about what he’s making. More
importantly, he should care about the movies he has made.
Woody Allen has a legacy – a body of work
– unlike any other filmmaker. What’s more, he’s beloved as a character and a public
figure. (I’ve seen around fifty of his films, some about a million times each.
Yeah, I’m a fan.) Not that he should start riding the honors circuit or
become a father-figure to young filmmakers (Hey, this is Woody) Or that he
should do anything that he doesn’t want (Again, this is Woody) but he should
realize his obligation not to dilute his body of work. Not to lower the average
quality of his films. His career, for all his vaunted independence, doesn’t
belong to just him anymore. If he needs a hobby, fine. How about needlepoint?
He shouldn’t, however, amuse himself at the expense of his – as the French say –
ouevre. That’s careless.
