To Rome With Love: Woody Allen’s Latest Postcard From Across the Way Reads Like a Hallmark Valentine
Big talents, like everybody else, deserve a day off. And sure enough, in the illustrious Woody Allen canon, To Rome With Love is a very minor entry that should be accompanied by a sign that says “Gone fishing.”
Having forsaken New York (temporarily, I hope) for an uneven European tour that includes stops in London, Barcelona and Paris, Woody now sends home a pretty but vapid tourist postcard of Rome that is nothing more than stale bolognese coarsened by a compendium of numbingly familiar clichés. Just how stale is evident as a cheesy rendition of “Volare” overwhelms the opening credits. From there, his 44th film as a director is a labored farce that makes few demands on the talents of its all-star cast and ends up as boring as it is preposterous. Read More
