Truly Dreadful Film

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This movie has no plot. The acting is good, and the individual scenes are very well executed. However, there is no real plot line, and the pieces though individually pretty, do not form a whole.The movie is a `behind-the-scenes' look at a drama company whose male lead Tuccio played by Turturro is not getting along with his lover, who is the female lead. There are a number of sub-plots, and essentially everyone want the two leads to get along and be in love. They also want the play to be a success. This is pretty much it. All sub-plot and no main one.

I don't know how this ended up with such a middling rating. It stands out as one of the wittiest, strangest and well-constructed films I've seen in years. Well photographed, with many characters wonderfully and unexpectedly acted. Appropriate for almost any mood, occasion or atmosphere.

Susan Sarandon! Her work as Celimene is a comic sight to behold. Whenever she's onscreen (which isn't enough) the material's full comedic potential kicks into overdrive. "Illuminata" the movie, leaves a lot to be desired--namely more Susan Sarandon at her most breathtakingly beautiful. At an age when most women give up any hope of ever being thought of as sexually appealing or sexually viable, to be exact, Susan owns her many charms and certainly knows how to make the most of them. Her seduction of Tuccio (played by John Turturro) is one of the most erotic in recent cinematic history. And, that it contains one of the funniest "gradification sequences" ever captured on celluloid just goes to show that no matter what age she may happen to be, the one and only Susan Sarandon is and always will be one of the sexiest women alive and the definitive "thinking man's sex symbol" as well as a truly gifted actress quite adept at comedy. By the way, what you just read was written by a 22 year old man--when it comes to beauty, both inside and out, age is nothing but a number. A virtue that Ms. Sarandon continues to redefine with each passing year. I know a magnificient talent when I see it. Score: The film gets 6 out of 10/B-, Susan Sarandon gets a 10/A+ as always.

"Write what you know about" has long been the dictum for writers ranging all the way from accomplished published authors to struggling composition class students; is there a playwright then who can resist the temptation to compose a play about composing a play? It has, of course, been done countless times in the past ("Shakespeare in Love" being but the most recent popular example), but, alas, rarely as dully as in "Illuminata," Brandon Cole's tale of a turn-of-the-century repertory company struggling, amid personal conflicts, theatrical roadblocks and even death, to produce an original work (itself entitled "Illuminata"). Cole, along with co-writer and director, John Turturro, centers his story on the playwright, Tuccio, (also played by Turturro), as he copes with temperamental actors, theatre owners and critics, all of whom conspire, intentionally or unintentionally, to sabotage his work.Like so many films that attempt to deal seriously with the creative process, "Illuminata" seems naively to suggest that inspiration can only be achieved after the creator has undergone a series of concomitant life experiences that somehow illuminate the truths hitherto obscured in darkness. Thus, since, in this case, the play-within-the-play deals with the issue of marital infidelity, it is only after the entire cast and crew of the production have participated in a night long sexual roundelay (which consists essentially of switching partners in a style too cute for words) that the play (which failed in its first performance the night before) can come to complete artistic fruition. This cloying and cliched view of theatre as merely a reflection of life (or vice versa) might have been acceptable had the script provided any truly interesting characters, profound insights or satiric wit to carry us through. As it is, though, the characters are both unappealing and woefully underdeveloped, the insights consist of mere self-indulgent paeans to the glory of artistic creation and the humor rests mainly in a series of surprisingly crude illustrations of sexual activity. Furthermore, Turturro is such a dull, uninspiring lead, with his constant sadsack expression and look of pained bewilderment, that he conveys no sense of the dynamism essential to a person capable of producing a work of genius. This leaves the rest of the cast, some of whom are very good, pretty much adrift as they thrash about looking for something solid in the way of character development to hold onto.Actually, the highlight of this film comes during the opening credit sequence, a beautifully done marionette performance that is almost heartbreaking in its otherworldly beauty and delicacy. It is a measure of the failure of the rest of the film that the audience wishes IT were performed by marionettes as well.