Surprisingly incoherent and boring

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Stylistic. Tick. Got it. As shallow and pointless as a musical. Okay. Which is why the dialogue is stilted and weird.The songs? Well, there aren't any really. All the music is recycled material, sung badly. And, quite importantly, none of these snippets of recycled crap lasts for more than a minute (sometimes less). So, it doesn't work as a musical. Is it stylistic and funny? Well, I 'got the joke' early on, when everyone was talking about sex and awful lot. So, I got a kick out of dirty words.Characters? As shallow as musical, (but one without the music). The worst part of the film is the final act, in which all the sex talk (and the crappy musical snippets) stop, and we veer uncomfortably into tragedy. Which doesn't work, because everything was so shallowly presented. Effectively, the 'stylism' tap was turned off, or the 'joke' stopped. So the terrible last act kills the entire movie (which was pretty stupid from the off). There is a ridiculous glitzy cast, none of which say or do anything. For example, there's a particularly egregious cameo by Christopher Walken, who walks on, talks bollocks, and then shows up a couple more times to talk more bollocks. This is Walken playing 'that Walken guy', which I guess earns him money.Plot points? Wafer-thin, but the relationship between an older man and an extremely over-sexed woman might have been interesting, but that might just be because the dirty talk was the only interesting thing in the movie, which speaks volumes about the movie. Of course, they killed that in the final act. So, there's about ten movies here, and none of them are any good.

I hate musicals, and fell into watching this without realising it was one of them, but this turned out to be one of the best films I've seen. I was thoroughly entertained in many ways.It's gritty and real whilst indulging the fantasy that allows us to get by. The music adds colour to what is already happening, it's seamless. The Engelbert Humperdinck song near the beginning is possibly one of the best ever performed songs in a movie, it's so funny! The characters are engaging and full, bordering on grotesque. Even with their exaggerated sides, there's part of them thats simple and warm, and could be the neighbour up the street or a member of your own family.It's not a complex story but it is rich, hitting many of life's notes with degree of understatement spiced with well projected emotions.The artistic camera work stands out in many scenes, a joy for the eye. All in all a real down to earth arty film that will appeal to people from all walks of life. For me it doesn't get much better than this.

An interesting misfire. Blue-collar Catholic husband from Queens, fighting with his infected lungs, cheats on his stalwart (but apparently sexless) wife with a red-haired British chippie and suffers the consequences. Perplexing drama from writer-director John Turturro, who seems caught in a Nicolas Roeg/Dennis Potter phase and frequently has his actors bursting into song-and-dance. The surreal musical-fringe isn't the general problem however, it is the unblushing sexual dialogue which makes these characters appear cartoonish. For all the careful work he does get accomplished, Turturro as a screenwriter is like a horny prankster with a poison pen. The overall effect is both immature and off-putting, although the filmmaker certainly gained the trust of his all-star cast, most of whom do solid work. *1/2 from ****

It's no coincidence that "Romance & Cigarettes" was executive produced by the Coen Brothers, who once in the brilliant "The Big Lebowski" created two musical sequences out of nothing to show the freedom making cinema meant for them. This film, written and directed by John Turturro, is the story of a husband that tries to get the love of his wife back, and I'm still not sure if it's mainly a musical; but I can assure you it's ruled by freedom.There's a great Spanish film, "El otro lado de la cama", that deals with a love quadrangle and in which the characters express their joys and sorrows in songs, and appear dancing and singing in the middle of the street. In this aspect, Turturro's film is exactly the same but I want to name a few things to emphasize the fact that "Romance & Cigarettes" was conceived with the beautiful idea of embracing the freedom that comes with film-making. First, the fact that Turturro, who has been married for more than twenty years and has two children, builds his story from the perspective of adult love. The main characters, Nick (James Gandolfini) and Kitty (Susan Sarandon), have been married for twenty years and as the film begins she discovers he's being unfaithful, and not precisely with a woman that could be compared to his wife, who angrily shouts: "I've been cooking for you for the last twenty years!".Nicky and Kitty's problems constitute the center of the movie (which gives place for Gandolfini to get out on the street and sing "A Man Without Love", as the whole city working men start joining him) that also deals with adolescent love in the relationship of one of Nick's daughters, Baby (Mandy Moore), and Fryburg (Bobby Cannavale); but this already starts bordering the ridiculous.The ridiculous is, of course, is an asset that shows Turturro's freedom. It's everywhere, if you pay attention. Take the scene in which we first meet the woman with whom Nick has the affair. Nick and some of his co-workers are dressed as firemen who try to put out the fire of a window, where a sexy woman can be seen dancing. She's Tula (Kate Winslet), and the music she dances with is Spanish Flamenco, but when we meet her then she has nothing to do with Spain; she's Irish (or maybe Scottish). Anyway, the thing is that the water coming from the pumps stops pumping and all these firemen end up dancing with Tula. It maybe hard for you to imagine it by reading it (and that's why you have to see the film), but it's fantastic.Another example of the film's careless and joyful existence is another one of Nicks daughters, Constance, played by Mary-Louise Parker. It's a wonderfully absurd performance by Parker, who is 44, and plays Constance as a rebellious teenager who reinvents herself everyday. Now we've got to wonder why Turturro might have given her the role: I'm almost sure that he did it because the actress is among the very few people who can really pull it off. Another annoying performance that is supposed to seem annoying and out of place is Nick's third daughter, Rosebud; a completely weird human being played by the director's cousin Aida Turturro. Just like it's no coincidence that the Coens produced the film, it's also logical that Turturro would find his casting options in the Coen universe: Steve Buscemi plays a minor role; James Gandolfini, a robust man and a serious character dramatic actor you would never imagine in a film of this type and whose best work is in a Coens film, achieves a perfection and a tenderness that we can sense was not difficult for him. Of course there are elements of the cast, like the enormous Parker, that come from somewhere else, which is Turturro's experience of some many years in the industry. What Kate Winslet makes of Tula, only she can make it; what Elaine Stritch does in two minutes can't be topped by anyone; Susan Sarandon is unique and Christopher Walken dancing is… well, you should already know about Walken. What I want to say is that Turturo has something to say, and it's not to be found in the songs that the film contains; or the script, which is a mixture of relationship knowledge (something greatly developed in "El Otro lado de la cama") and songs that turn into actual spoken words and vice-versa. In fact, it takes another bit of attention to notice the fact that the songs are partially sang by the actors (they sing over the originals) and sometimes some of them don't get the tempo right, that the choreographies are far from perfect (even though Tom Stern's cinematography gets the best out of every scene, acted and/or danced); but this doesn't make the film less brave or extravagant or fundamental in its message. I say too often that musicals need to fly on screen, because "Moulin Rouge!" soars and it set a bar. There's a plane in "Romance & Cigarettes" that is shown several times and it never seems to land: I think it's trying to make clear that the movie, even if we can't define it in the musical genre, flies…High.