As the ungodly summer of 2012 continues to bake the east coast, and wildfires several square miles rage in Colorado, it’s important to remember Global Warming is just a myth kids. Saturday with much of the greater D.C, area facing power outages, which seemed to hit mostly stoplights, enjoying AC and stuffing my face with popcorn seemed like a good idea. I decided to grab Woody Allen’s latest feature To Rome With Love. Following the trend of Allen’s recent films such as Scoop, Vicky Christina Barcelona, and Midnight in Paris, telling a story of several Americans and their comical experiences in a famous European city.

The film consists of several different stories, in a variety of styles, in the somewhat magical city of Rome. I found this to be one of the films greatest charms, but I can also see why many audiences would find it frustrating. One story consisted of Alec Baldwin(30 Rock, Rock of Ages), as a man who lived in Rome years earlier, befriending  Jesse Eisenberg(Zombieland) a young man who lives on the same street he used to. Baldwin becomes a sort of inner monologue for Eisenberg, who tries to pursue an affair with his Girlfriend  closest friend played by Ellen Paige(Juno).  The film never makes it clear if Baldwin is imagining the situations of Eisenberg or vice versa. The film also features Roberto Benigni(Life is Beautiful) as a businessman who becomes famous for no apparent reason. Alessandra Mastronardi and Allesandro Tiberi play a pair of newlyweds on their Honeymoon who get separated and end up in a series of rather ribald adventures.  Woody Allen plays a retiree from America, who becomes determined to turn his future son-in-law’s father into a successful opera singer. Within all these stories there are also a wide variety of sub-plots, such as Penelope Cruz(Vanilla Sky, Volver) as the hooker forced to pretend to be meek accountant Allesandro Tiberi’s wife,  Confused Yet?

Allen stated that his biggest influence in making the film was the Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. The Decameron is a 14^th century work from Italy telling of series of stories of wildly different styles about life at the time. Many of the stories depicted were comic, and eroticism though frequent, was depicted as natural, beautiful, and often silly. Allen keeps these traditions alive and well in his film, there is a good deal of discussion and jokes about sex, but nothing is actually shown. Each narrative thread in the film is done in its own style. The Baldwin/Eisenberg Vingette with its manipulation of narrative structure seems like a film by Abbas Kiarostami. Robert Begnini’s sequence seems like a surreal gag by Luis Bunuel. The sequence with the newlyweds harkens back to films like Roman Holiday staring Audrey Hepburn. The sequence featuring Allen is the least interesting of all the threads and is filmed in the most conventional style of the four.

While it’s easy to bash on this film for having a bit too many characters and story to be easy to follow, this film unlike so many others is trying. The night before I saw To Rome With Love, I went to see Ted. While I was in pains from laughter during Seth Mcfarlane’s opus, within 30 minutes after it ended I struggled to recall a really memorable joke. Ten years from now I’m going to remember Benigni’s confused salaryman.

Not every part of this film works and at some parts it really does drag, but what makes it worthwhile is its sweetness and that it’s trying. Turn on the news and everyone is yelling if not about healthcare, it’s taxes, or housing, or jobs. Go to see the movies and it’s often the same dumb-it-down and blow-it-up nonsense. It was nice to see a dialogue driven film, about romance, with beautiful people and a beautiful city. So if you don’t want to die of sunstroke, enjoy some ac for two hours, and take Mr. Allen’s tour of Bella Roma.

Shawn Barron

07/01/2012