History of the Decline of "The Fall Project."

     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.