'Rome' accentuates the ancient

The comic devices in ‘To Rome With Love’ are well worn but aging gracefully, even if Woody Allen is not

From left: Alessandro Tiberi, Roberto Della Casa and Penélope Cruz in “To Rome With Love.” Philippe Antonello • Sony Pictures Classics

“To Rome With Love”

Rating: R

When: Opens today

Where: Landmark Hillcrest and La Jolla Village

Running time: 1 hour, 52 minutes


To get the most out of Woody Allen’s latest film, “To Rome With Love,” try a little time travel — back to May 2011, just before “Midnight in Paris” was released to the warmest critical reception the writer-director has seen in decades, and the biggest box office of his career. With that picture wiped from existence, the fourth stop on Allen’s grand tour of Europe might feel like yet another forgettable, but not unpleasant entry on Allen’s lengthy filmography, instead of a letdown.

As the traffic cop tells us from the middle of a frenzied intersection, Rome is a city with countless stories. Allen settles on four, including Jerry (Allen), a reluctantly retired opera director who travels with his deadpan wife (Judy Davis, a worthy opponent) to Rome to meet their daughter’s (Alison Pill) Italian fiancé and his family. “Rome” is the first film Allen has appeared in since 2006’s “Scoop,” and it’s our first opportunity to see him fully embrace the role he was always meant to play, a kvetching old man. Allen gives himself some of the film’s funniest lines, but his age tinges the humor with wistful regret.

Jerry immediately stirs up trouble with his insistence that he can transform his daughter’s future father-in-law, Giancarlo (Fabio Armiliato), a humble undertaker with a stellar shower-only singing voice, into opera’s next big star. Giancarlo is initially offended by the suggestion that he sing for anything but love, but Jerry’s tactless persistence and promises of fame eventually win out.

At a light, perky pace set to classic Italian pop songs, we meet the other players, many of whom resemble lightweight versions of Allen archetypes. The most obvious Allen stand-in is Jesse Eisenberg as Jack, an American architecture student living in Rome with his girlfriend, Sally (Greta Gerwig, underused here). When Sally’s insecure, sexually manipulative best friend (Ellen Page, who creates one of Allen’s most unlikable women) comes to stay with the couple, the weak-willed Jack is sitting bait. Eisenberg certainly owns Allen’s neurotic energy, but he does it without Allen’s desperate, former stand-up comic edge, making him more subdued — or less annoying, depending upon how you feel about Allen.

Walking around the city, Jack bumps into John (Alec Baldwin), a successful architect who sold out along the way. Their encounter is brief, but John tags along in Jack’s imagination as his disapproving subconscious. Again, an old-fashioned device that has some charm, though it wears out as the film progresses.

Bringing the va-va-voom to this retro-style Italian sex comedy is Penelope Cruz as Anna, a prostitute mistakenly sent to the hotel room of Antonio (Alessandro Tiberi), a meek newlywed whose pretty, wide-eyed wife, Milly (Alessandra Mastronardi), just stepped out to the hair salon. Hopelessly lost, Milly happens upon a movie set and is seduced by an adulterous Italian star (Antonio Albanese), while Antonio finds himself passing off a call girl as his bride to family and potential employers. Here, Mastronardi’s uncorrupted naif and Cruz’s confident, sexy prostitute keep the device in mostly working order.


