MIDNIGHT IN PARIS was always going to be a hard act to follow…But while TO ROME WITH LOVE does not soar like last year’s masterpiece it is still one of the better comedies of the year.

TO ROME WITH LOVE is a kaleidoscopic caper, a series of vignettes in the style of those cavalcade movies that came out of Italy in the Sixties and Seventies, so much so I was surprised that they didn’t exhume Marcello Mastroianni to make a cameo. And where was Sophia Loren?

It does have Roberto Benigni in it though, and it’s about time he and Woody Allen collaborated. He plays a guy who wakes up one morning and is inexplicably famous. Famous for being famous. This episode has echoes of CELEBRITY, and Woody’s scorn for the cult of celebrity and the paparazzi.

Alec Baldwin, Jessie Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig and Ellen Page step up in an episode about an architect reminiscing about his youth in Rome while commenting on a present day relationship of three young people grappling with love and romance. Baldwin acts as both muse and chorus in a deft bit of cinematic sleight of hand.

Woody himself pops up with five time collaborator Judy Davis, playing husband and wife. He is a frustrated music impresario who wants to put his daughter’s fiancé’s father on stage singing in the shower. His daughter is played by Alison Pill who played Zelda Fitzgerald in Midnight in Paris.

Also reuniting with Woody is Penelope Cruz as a firecracker hooker caught up in a case of mistaken identity and forced to masquerade as a newlywed.

Frothy, frivolous fun, the cinematic equivalent of a cappuccino, TO ROME WITH LOVE is beautifully shot by Darius Khondji who lensed MIDNIGHT IN PARIS and features some of Italy’s finest actors including Antonio Albanese and Ornella Mutti.

It casually blends the real and surreal, celebrates silliness, and of course, the Eternal City.

© Richard Cotter

18th October, 2012

Tags: Sydney Movie Reviews- TO ROME WITH LOVE, Woody Allen, Sydney Arts Guide, Richard Cotter.