A Roma con amor

Estoy de acuerdo con la opinión de D. Křivánková, expresada en una reseña en Instinkt, de que cualquier película de Woody Allen es mejor que la mayoría de las demás. Realmente, firmaría eso. Definitivamente, no me gustó Roma tanto como París, por muchas razones personales, pero sigue siendo una clásica comedia de Woody con sus temas habituales, que deleitó a sus fieles seguidores después de una pausa más larga con su presencia, cautivó con su típica absurdidad con un enterrador cantando una aria verista en la ducha y triunfó con su sátira a las celebridades y la locura de los medios de comunicación asociada. Por otro lado, no me gustó la elección del reparto, Jesse Eisenberg es francamente malo, insípido, no me convence, para mí simboliza una versión fracasada de Michael Cera, lástima que Owen Wilson no haya vuelto a aparecer, quien fue absolutamente fantástico en París y actuó mejor que cualquiera en el papel típico de Woody. Ellen Page tampoco me impresionó de ninguna manera, Alec Baldwin me molestó de alguna manera en su extraño papel, así que aparte de Woody, destacan solo Penélope Cruz y Roberto Benigni. En resumen, cuatro estrellas le sientan bien a Roma y en camino a Copenhague por Mikkelsen, Thomsen y Lie Kaas. (17.08.2012)

The narrative of To Rome with Love offers poor justification for the transparent attempt to cram into the film as many shots of picturesque Roman lanes and attractive tourist locations as possible – if the Italian way of life is thematised, it is without any sense of detachment, from the perspective of a person who is uncritically enthusiastic about everything Italian (food, opera, historical sights and the language, which are among the few aspects that make watching this film a tolerable experience). There is a minimum of jokes that require the viewer to think (and it’s better not to think too much even about the few better lines that Allen kept for himself) – more often, something “humorously” falls on someone or someone is caught in flagranti with someone else and, most often, i.e. through most of the film, nothing funny happens at all. Resignation to a more complexly constructed narrative – the stories are not connected by anything except the city and the subject of love, nor are they in any way intertwined, and due to their varying degrees of fantasticalness, it would have made more sense if one had just followed the end of the previous one. Blatant sexism in the treatment of the female characters – the more three-dimensional heroines (Greta Gerwig, Judy Davis) are given significantly less space than the passionate Anna, the superficial Monica and the unsophisticated Milly, for whom intimate contact with a man she only recently met is as natural a part of the day as morning hygiene. The hackneyed plots and the shared wisdom – if you are lenient enough to accept that Allen is telling us something other than “I visited Rome and had a wonderful time”. There is an excess of Allen’s neuroticism, probably in an attempt to save time on coming up with new characters – three agitated male characters are too many for one film. The result? Woody Allen’s weakest comedy (and I’ve seen What’s Up, Tiger Lily?). 50% (19.07.2012)

Another bland and half dead film by Allen. Rome has a lot of charm, but it can’t do much by itself. Storywise, To Rome with Love is about nothing and when it comes to the humour, well, I chuckled a little here and there, but nothing hilarious, really. Everything is ruled by predictability and lack of interest. Even the on paper strongest and most original absurd story of a bureaucrat who becomes famous out of nowhere… Everyone knows how it will turn out: that the exaggerated interest by the press will vanish just as fast, that he will feel relieved immediately after, but soon will start to miss his fame. And that is actually it. I wasn’t crazy about Midnight in Paris, either, but objectively it’s substantially better than this one. (14.12.2012)

Woody Allen seems to be paying tribute to all the most romantic places in Europe. For the umpteenth time, he films a story of several people and couples that is equally entertaining and incredibly "heartwarming”, experiencing everything from falling in love, through everyday routine, to stormy breakups and the search for the meaning of life. Allen is traditionally strong in dialogue lines and gripping script twists in the almost intimate personal tales and thoughts of the main characters. It is very enchanting and very cleverly directed. Unfortunately, it is only for a very specific type of audience who enjoy these kinds of stories and see at least a partial reflection of their romantic selves in them. For the rest, it will just be empty blabber, always the same, with the incredibly gorgeous Penelope Cruz. (18.05.2013)

Although Woody’s previous visits to the old continent (and most of those to London too) are a cut above this, it doesn’t mean that this satirical farce in Rome isn’t any good. It is good, but at the same time too over-combined, so the good in it (and there’s lots of that) is mixed up with everything average to bad (and there’s a lot of that too). (13.07.2012)