I wasn't aware, until seeing 'Romance & Cigarettes', that John Turturro was an admirer of the late, great Dennis Potter. Potter recognised that the manufactured sentimentality of the popular song could have an astonishing emotional potency, and had actors lip-synch to hits of the '30s, '40s and '50s to good dramatic effect in three of his most effective television dramas, 'Pennies From Heaven', 'The Singing Detective' and (the less accomplished) 'Lipstick On My Collar'. This was an innovative way of advancing plot and revealing characters' hopes, nightmares and aspirations without resorting to the formal glitz of the movie musical. Of course Hollywood, in adapting the first two of these dramas, rather missed the point that these weren't musicals, and tried to make the numbers as glamorous as possible. Here Turturro has his actors sing along to pop classics in a sort of poorly choreographed 'theatrical karaoke' not helped by the inescapable fact that most of his cast can't sing and look hugely uncomfortable.
The sexual confusions and middle-aged masculine betrayals which preoccupied Potter are here, but while one or two of the songs have a passing relevance to the emotional dramas being played out in the rest of the script, some of them Christopher Walken's rendition of the Tom Jones hit 'Delilah' (oddly Walken's rendition of the title song in 'Pennies From Heaven' was the only genuinely impressive thing about that film) are astonishingly contrived. We can see the songs coming, which despite their grimy, urban context deprives them of the spontaneous energy that fuelled Potters best work. Song titles and lyrics, similarly, are levered into the otherwise conversational (and occasionally very witty) script at every opportunity including, for no apparent reason, a verse of Potter's favourite hymn, 'Will There Be Any Stars In My Crown'.
There are some very funny moments Kate Winslet's line, on being dumped by boyfriend James Gandolfini, "You wouldn't be able to say that so easily if I was licking your b***!", produced a huge roar of laughter from the audience at the screening I attended. Some of the performances are, in and of themselves, very good Sarandon and Elaine Stritch, particularly. Gandolfini plays his trademark lovable-rogue, and Winslet plays, very successfully, against type and gives the impression that she has hitherto unsuspected comic talents. Steve Buscemi's movie-nerd builder is amusing. Mary-Louise Parker (astonishingly miscast) Aida Turturro and even Mr Walken simply seem to be along for the ride.
Played as a comedy-drama with no music and a greater reliance on the observational wit the writer-director clearly possesses, this could have been a fine film. It isn't.
The sexual confusions and middle-aged masculine betrayals which preoccupied Potter are here, but while one or two of the songs have a passing relevance to the emotional dramas being played out in the rest of the script, some of them Christopher Walken's rendition of the Tom Jones hit 'Delilah' (oddly Walken's rendition of the title song in 'Pennies From Heaven' was the only genuinely impressive thing about that film) are astonishingly contrived. We can see the songs coming, which despite their grimy, urban context deprives them of the spontaneous energy that fuelled Potters best work. Song titles and lyrics, similarly, are levered into the otherwise conversational (and occasionally very witty) script at every opportunity including, for no apparent reason, a verse of Potter's favourite hymn, 'Will There Be Any Stars In My Crown'.
There are some very funny moments Kate Winslet's line, on being dumped by boyfriend James Gandolfini, "You wouldn't be able to say that so easily if I was licking your b***!", produced a huge roar of laughter from the audience at the screening I attended. Some of the performances are, in and of themselves, very good Sarandon and Elaine Stritch, particularly. Gandolfini plays his trademark lovable-rogue, and Winslet plays, very successfully, against type and gives the impression that she has hitherto unsuspected comic talents. Steve Buscemi's movie-nerd builder is amusing. Mary-Louise Parker (astonishingly miscast) Aida Turturro and even Mr Walken simply seem to be along for the ride.
Played as a comedy-drama with no music and a greater reliance on the observational wit the writer-director clearly possesses, this could have been a fine film. It isn't.