Romance & Cigarettes

I just saw this wonderful film at the Toronto Film Festival and what a delightful experience it was. It's so refreshing to see a film-maker who is willing to take the huge, bold risks that John Turturo has taken in his direction. Also, what a treat it was to see James Gandofini, Susan Sarandon, Christopher Walken and Kate Winslet singing and dancing and making outrageous and exciting acting choices. A wonderful selection of music, a charming and literate script and consistently good performance....what else could you ask for in a movie. Watch for Elaine Stritch in a brief role that is should be required viewing for any acting student. Also loved the work of Aida Turturro. This film was a joy to watch!

John Tuturro is nothing else if not original, and his second film as writer/director is nothing if not a swift kick in the nuts to the sheen of movie musical. It's fresh and original and, when at its best, extremely and surprisingly funny. Tuturro casts very well for a story that's like a half-baked fever-dream of blue collar malaise (think the Honeymooners meets French New-Wave art film): Gandolfini plays Nick Murder, a man who loves his wife Kitty (Sarandon), but can't seem to lay off the women on the side - the one she's now with, Tula (cockney-voiced Winslet) - is a fiery redhead. Right at the start there's an argument and a near fight, and the rest of the film becomes a rumination and celebration of love and lust and other crazy things involved with the human heart, leading up to redemption.

There's a certain quality to Romance and Cigarettes that marks it as a pop-marked must-see, a picture with terrific songs (ranging from Joplin to James Brown to Elvis to Cindi Lauper), and some terrific numbers to go along with them. There's an exuberance that Tuturro reaches for that he achieves like few who've made musicals in the past several years; his actors, however much they do or don't seem to be singing with the songs playing on during the numbers, are into the groove, the abstract/surreal quality that at times makes it like a whacked out extended dream sequence on the Sopranos (Buscemi and Tuturro sister Aida were also on the show, the latter here as Gandolfini's daughter as opposed to his sister on the show). There is so much that does entertain that it becomes a shame when it starts to dawn on one that a) the film has a shallow center to it, as we know nothing much about Nick and Kitty's marriage aside from the spoken words of "we were in love, then, not", and then leading into b) an unnecessarily bleak ending, where the possible reigns of the high spirits are replaced by a kind of screeching-halt aesthetic, albeit with the most organically sung (i.e. out of the scene itself not as a NUMBER) song in the film.

But for fans of film in general it's a scatter-shot treat that provides the kinds of joy that the usual Hollywood grind wont provide. Top of the pops belong to Christopher Walken, who has a strange accent (black guy or slight southern-touch as Cousin Bo?) pulls off his funniest in a song since the Weapon of Choice music video, and just whenever on screen has one either smiling or laughing hysterically. Winslet is also astoundingly good here in a part that requires her to be tart-tongued but not a floozy, sophisticated in a manner of speaking even if the 'girl on the side'. She gives it her all, which also goes (mostly) for the main middle-aged stars. Sometimes you do wish you could just hear the actors belt out the songs themselves without the background tuning up as if it's like a demented karaoke out of the New York/New Jersey blue collar world. But when they do connect, it's a lot of fun. Same goes for the movie itself- a very admirable first time out, if almost too ambitious for the nature of the script.

Construction worker Nick Murder (James Gandolfini) is married with Kitty (Susan Sarandon) and has three daughters. However one day Kitty discovers a written message Nick sent to another woman. After a fire where he takes service as a fireman with his best friend Angelo (Steve Buscemi) he goes again to his mistress Tula (Kate Winslet), and she asks Nick to choose between her or his wife. Nick has to choose between the extramarital affair or redemption, and has to do it before it's too late.

ROMANCE AND CIGARETTES is quite a strange experiment in its own way. From the plot it looks like a sentimental comedy yet it has also drama moments and looks a bit like a musical. This blending of genres worked greatly and I have to say it, I have never seen something like this before! The cast is full of great names (James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Steve Buscemi, Kate Winslet, Christopher Walken in an explosive cameo as Sarandon's cousin who loves singing even in restaurants, Eddie Izzard, Elaine Stritch and Mary Louise Parker) which gives all entertaining performances. The direction by John Turturro (who even has a brief cameo as a male dancer) is slick and fluid.

If you are in the right mindset, you might probably love this movie especially if you want to see something unique.

"Romance & Cigarettes" is a flawed but endearing film. Its stylised dialogue -- often stitched together from song lyrics, lines from films and, I think, even a snatch of Beckett's Endgame -- its characters bursting into lip-synched song and dance, its strange, disjointed scenes and its total lack of romance will doubtless annoy a lot of people hoping for something somewhat more straightforward and conventional. Personally, I was hoping for something that might address the issues of love, romance and relationships which the film, instead, prodded gently before dancing and singing around them. I would also have liked to have seen more of Mary Louise Parker, who I thought was cruelly underused. And...Eddie Izzard? And yet...and yet...I really liked this film. It had an inventiveness and a quirky charm, a surreal, loopy approach to narrative and dialogue, was beautifully filmed and -- within limitations of the form -- wonderfully acted. Particular kudos to Kate Winslet, unrecognizably and thoroughly dislikeable, who nonetheless "sings" one of the more heart-stopping numbers, Ute Lemper's version of Cave & Piseks "Little Water Song", while underwater. Meanwhile, adding to his gallery of whacked-out and weird characters, Christopher Walken delivers what must be one of his weirdest performances yet as the Elvis-idolising Cousin Bo. Like a lot of things in this film, you have to see it to believe it, and even then you won't be too sure.

I see cultdom beckoning for this little gem, late-night showings, repeated viewings, singalongs and favourite lines of dialogue bandied about like a secret currency. It's unlikely that it would have been made if it wasn't John Turturro writing and the Coens producing, but now it's out there, I recommend it be seen, if only for curiosity value. You either hate it or love it and -- for all its flaws -- I loved it.

Direction duties on the latest Coen brothers release have been entrusted to an able lieutenant in John Tuturro – the scene-stealing actor from O Brother, Where Art Thou, Miller's Crossing and The Big Lebowski. In his hands, Romance and Cigarettes embraces all the staple Coen nuances but is unsettlingly gritty – less kitsch, more kitchen sink.

Predictably, the film is just a fraction beyond offbeat. For starters it is a musical – original songs and irreverent covers belch incongruously through the pithy dialogue – and, while appearing slightly amateurish at times, in the main it is shot with a grimy panache.

The anti-hero is Nick Murder (James Gandolfini) - an overweight, chain-smoking construction worker who is married to Kitty (Susan Sarandon), but having a torrid affair with ballsy English slapper Tula (Kate Winslet). Nick has a trio of daughters (Mandy Moore – precocious sex bomb, Mary Louise Parker – punk and Aida Tuturro – chubby mummy's girl) who pass the time knocking out grungey rock music in their back garden. Plot-wise, that's about your lot - superficially, the movie is about a family coping with adultery, but this is the Coen brothers, so there are always points of interest lurking in the mundane subject matter.

If you're going to have a stab at unconventional drama, it is best to arm yourself with some quality to beef up your oddballs. So Tuturro has called in favours from Steve Buscemi who raises more than a few chortles as Nick's philosophising co-worker, and an elaborately coiffed Christopher Walken who lends the fancy footwork he cultured on that Fatboy Slim video to some of the more surreal dance sequences. Weirder still is Eddie Izzard's new age church choir organist who distributes marital advice to Mrs. Murder in between belting out gospel hits.

A stellar cast then, and one cannot fault the promotional poster, which is so dominated by Winslet's mountainous, and, let's face it, almost certainly air-brushed breasts (no offence Kate) that it has been crudely censored on the London Underground.

The poster hints at Winslet being some sort of femme fatale, but she actually has few scenes to demonstrate anything other than jiggling, pouting and athletic sexual gymnastics. Much of her dialogue (delivered in an ambiguously mid-Pennines northern accent) is absolutely filthy dirty and is, if you close your eyes, uncomfortably evocative of Kathy Staff in Last of the Summer Wine. No wonder I had nightmares afterwards.

Winslet is following in the footsteps of Helena Bonham Carter, shrugging off the corset and the irritating "English rose" label by taking increasingly earthy roles. Serious, cerebral critics (their spectacles steaming up with every cleavage shot) will no doubt call this performance "brave", "challenging" or even "career defining". More realistically, she probably saw it as an ideal chance to prance around in hot pants and spout smut breathlessly into a telephone whilst trying desperately not to giggle. Either way, it's obviously some sort of trend among English actresses – watch out for Keira Knightley in the new remake of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

But beneath the silliness beats a mournful heart. The Coens' influence, though undeniably prominent, does not swamp Tuturro's serious side and the last third of the movie sees a significant mood change.

Buscemi, Walken and the quirky choreography take a back seat as Gandolfini and Sarandon muscle their way to the fore. It is an impressively gripping finale to a curiously disjointed film, and one which, on balance, just about tips it towards triumph rather than turkey.

The story is wafer thin and the musical set pieces veer dangerously between hit and miss. Frankly it's a bit of a shambles at times, but no less enjoyable for that.

7/10