It's practically impossible to talk about a film in which an unprepossessing writer-director not only casts himself improbably as a babe magnet but selects as his co-star the writer-director Woody Allen who also had a penchant for writing and directing films in which he cast himself as a babe magnet. John Turturro goes one better by casting himself not only as a babe magnet but one who the gorgeous babes in question are more than happy to pay him a stud fee. This is Art imitating Art and it's difficult to believe a word of it. Bizarrely he casts the French pop-star Vanessa Paradis as an orthodox Jewish widow, a role that virtually any Hollywood actress could have played better and ironically although I have always had an aversion to Paradis I was nevertheless thoroughly chagrined when Turturro has her choose the wrong guy - Lieve Shreibman - a character with all the charisma of a gobbet of phlegm and sinister to boot - he not only spies on Paradis he also organises a team of Jewish strong-arms to snatch Allen off the street in the interests of jealousy, and to top it all, a character in whom Paradis has shown not a scintilla of attraction throughout the film. Watchable - just about
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