Review of To Rome with Love (2012) by Chris W — 26 Feb 2013

I had heard some decidedly mixed to even rather negative things about this, but ya know what? That's not entirely accurate.

Set in Rome, we get four unrelated vignettes that all involve love and relationships in some sort of way, all of them generally kind of funny, and falling under the umbrella of rom-com/magical realism.

The movie isn't really a good one per se, but it's not terrible either. I think it mostly fails to be great because Woody is old, doesn't really care much anymore, and just keeps on making movies just because. In a way, I'm okay with this, because even the worst Woody Allen is still sort of enjoyable in its own way.

All of these four stories are hit and miss, but each one did make me laugh at least once, though never in a gut busting sort of way. Even when things fell flat, I wasn't really bored, so that shows you right there that the film isn't a complete loss.

It's good seeing Woody act again, but his shtick is quite tired here, and I wouldn't have cared had he just stayed behind the camera. It's at least nice seeing Roberto Benigni and Judy Davis again, though. Jesse Eisenberg makes for a great surrogate Woody, and I liked Ellen Page as well. Seeing Penelope Cruz play a prostitute posing as a newly married man's wife was probably the highlight though.

All in all, this is lesser Allen, but it still has its merits. I don't fully recommend it, but can't think of enough reasons not to possibly check it out either.