Romance & Cigarettes (2007)

Review:

How does one describe John Tuturro’s “Romance & Cigarettes?” Phrases that come to mind are ‘Blue Collar Fellini,’ ‘Poor Man’s “Moulin Rouge,” maybe even ‘an authentic modern musical.’ Its always hard and fun to describe movies like this, that defy expectations and try for something new. “Romance & Cigarettes” doesn’t consistently work, but when it works, it is magic.

James Gandolfini plays Nick, a heavy smoking steel worker who is having an affair with Tula (Kate Winslet) a kinky and quirky lingerie saleswoman. When Nick’s wife Kitty (Susan Sarandon) finds a poem that Nick wrote for Tula’s nether regions she takes it as an affirmation that Nick is indeed having an affair. Kitty and her three grown daughters (Mary-Louis Parker, Mandy Moore, and Aida Tuturro) gang up against Nick who then storms out of the house to expresses his grief and frustration. How does he express said grief and frustration you might ask? Well, by singing along with Engelbert Humperdinck’s recording of “A Man Without Love.” And when I write singing along, I literally mean the sound recording of the song is playing over the action and James Gandolfini, with all his amateurish vocalization, sings along with the song. Then garbage men enter the scene, also singing and dancing. Throughout the movie there will be singing interludes like this, where main characters take a moment to sing along with the soundtrack.

Director and writer John Tuturro raises some interesting points by constructing his unusual musical in this way. In my review of “Nine” (2009) I said that director Rob Marshall was pioneering the cerebral musical – where musical numbers take place entirely within the minds of its characters - to make a more realistic, accessible musical for today’s audiences. I think Tuturro is going after a similar end. “Romance & Cigarettes” is an intentionally disorganized musical.

If music suddenly descended from the sky and we were divinely imbued with corresponding lyrics, what makes us assume that we would look pretty while singing? Humans are not inherently pretty or organized like most musicals would suggest. We are messy beasts of emotion and action. In all likelihood, if the musical was a fact of reality, it would look something like James Gandolfini singing with garbage men in the street. Choreography is not a natural state of being.

I loved the musical numbers in this film. When “A Man Without Love” was sung, I couldn’t stop laughing for the first thirty seconds. I also particularly liked a song Tula sings under the water, and another song that Christopher Walken, yes, Christopher Walken, sings.

There is a surrealistic edge to this film that I admire greatly. But I found the scenes that flirt with realism to be not nearly as compelling. The acting is all precise and good, the writing is excellent, but I found myself always wanting the film to hurry along to the next musical number. That’s the real problem with this film. It will blast you with surreal energy and riotous humor and you cheer it on and its superb…and then it will languish too long on the ties that bind and everyday tragedies.

Rating:

On a scale of one to Casablanca, this film is a “Rope” (1948)

Review:

There’s good stuff here. Really good stuff. But when a film is constantly making you think “Give me the payoff, I want my fix, where’s the action” it inherently becomes a distraction to itself. “Romance & Cigarettes” transforms too much. It moves from a raucous sex-musical into an odd dirge, and while they both work on some level, it’s hard to reconcile it as one film with a succinct focus. But insofar as the film does work it’s all in the concept. I love musicals because I think they are so weird. “Romance & Cigarettes” is a conscious affirmation of the weirdness.