Waste of time

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

This is one of the few films that I have been unable to watch in it's entirety. A musical where nobody can sing and volume makes way for talent.A great cast is woeful and embarrassing in this indulgent car crash of a movie.Speaking of which "Thelma and Louise" star Susan Saradon is given a none too flattering close up what seems like every 10 seconds. Enough to make you drive off a cliff. It does for her career what "Abba" did for Meryl Streep.The dialogue is not witty but crass and puerile. Everything in this film appears to be borrowed and stale .If nothing else it just is discordant and irritating. Good songs are mutilated instead of celebrated in they are in,"The Blues Brothers".The film is so desperate to be hip and cool that it is quite the reverse. It is a nerd of a movie. Other than that I completely hated it.

If you like "slightly nuts," you may like this offbeat Blue Collar musical, a sort of Turturro Home Movie crossed with a little bit of soap opera and a good amount of goofy comedy. The tone is not consistent: what happens in the plot is not what is usually expected in this kind of film, and those who want a linear plot where everything is consistent in tone and it all ends nicely will be disappointed.Romance and Cigarettes often a bit silly, but as critic Wesley Morris commented, "it transcends preposterousness with tons of ardor." It's clear that Sarandon, Gandolfini and Kate Winslet are doing this for love, and the honest feeling that shines through the last few minutes of the film is what love is really all about. I would have paid full theatre price for this little gem just to watch Christopher Walken do some amazing parody work with minimal effort.

"Romance and Cigarettes" is an outrageous musical about the working class. It takes some getting used to, but it's well worth it, thanks to all of the talent in front of the camera and behind the scenes. It's risky, it's off the wall, it's bold, and at times, it's a riot. And you can't beat the soundtrack or the dancing policemen.James Gandolfini plays Nick Murder (who else), a cheating husband married to Susan Sarandon and involved with the nearly unrecognizable Kate Winslet, a red-headed slut. They have three daughters: Constance (Mary-Louise Parker), Rosebud (Aida Turturro, Gandolfini's sister in the Sopranos; Turturro is one year younger than Gandolfini and Mary-Louise Parker is three years younger), and Baby (Mandy Moore), who have their own romance problems. The cast also includes Steve Buscemi, Bobby Carnavale, Eddie Izzard, and Christopher Walken. The characters all break into song with no notice, and the music includes "Piece of My Heart," "This is a Man's World," "Delilah," "Trouble," and many others.The film chronicles the choice Nick Murder must make as he grapples with his life.Very quirky and not for everyone, but some really marvelous performances, great music, and both fun and poignant moments.

It's no coincidence that "Romance & Cigarettes" was executive produced by the Coen Brothers, who once in the brilliant "The Big Lebowski" created two musical sequences out of nothing to show the freedom making cinema meant for them. This film, written and directed by John Turturro, is the story of a husband that tries to get the love of his wife back, and I'm still not sure if it's mainly a musical; but I can assure you it's ruled by freedom.There's a great Spanish film, "El otro lado de la cama", that deals with a love quadrangle and in which the characters express their joys and sorrows in songs, and appear dancing and singing in the middle of the street. In this aspect, Turturro's film is exactly the same but I want to name a few things to emphasize the fact that "Romance & Cigarettes" was conceived with the beautiful idea of embracing the freedom that comes with film-making. First, the fact that Turturro, who has been married for more than twenty years and has two children, builds his story from the perspective of adult love. The main characters, Nick (James Gandolfini) and Kitty (Susan Sarandon), have been married for twenty years and as the film begins she discovers he's being unfaithful, and not precisely with a woman that could be compared to his wife, who angrily shouts: "I've been cooking for you for the last twenty years!".Nicky and Kitty's problems constitute the center of the movie (which gives place for Gandolfini to get out on the street and sing "A Man Without Love", as the whole city working men start joining him) that also deals with adolescent love in the relationship of one of Nick's daughters, Baby (Mandy Moore), and Fryburg (Bobby Cannavale); but this already starts bordering the ridiculous.The ridiculous is, of course, is an asset that shows Turturro's freedom. It's everywhere, if you pay attention. Take the scene in which we first meet the woman with whom Nick has the affair. Nick and some of his co-workers are dressed as firemen who try to put out the fire of a window, where a sexy woman can be seen dancing. She's Tula (Kate Winslet), and the music she dances with is Spanish Flamenco, but when we meet her then she has nothing to do with Spain; she's Irish (or maybe Scottish). Anyway, the thing is that the water coming from the pumps stops pumping and all these firemen end up dancing with Tula. It maybe hard for you to imagine it by reading it (and that's why you have to see the film), but it's fantastic.Another example of the film's careless and joyful existence is another one of Nicks daughters, Constance, played by Mary-Louise Parker. It's a wonderfully absurd performance by Parker, who is 44, and plays Constance as a rebellious teenager who reinvents herself everyday. Now we've got to wonder why Turturro might have given her the role: I'm almost sure that he did it because the actress is among the very few people who can really pull it off. Another annoying performance that is supposed to seem annoying and out of place is Nick's third daughter, Rosebud; a completely weird human being played by the director's cousin Aida Turturro. Just like it's no coincidence that the Coens produced the film, it's also logical that Turturro would find his casting options in the Coen universe: Steve Buscemi plays a minor role; James Gandolfini, a robust man and a serious character dramatic actor you would never imagine in a film of this type and whose best work is in a Coens film, achieves a perfection and a tenderness that we can sense was not difficult for him. Of course there are elements of the cast, like the enormous Parker, that come from somewhere else, which is Turturro's experience of some many years in the industry. What Kate Winslet makes of Tula, only she can make it; what Elaine Stritch does in two minutes can't be topped by anyone; Susan Sarandon is unique and Christopher Walken dancing is… well, you should already know about Walken. What I want to say is that Turturo has something to say, and it's not to be found in the songs that the film contains; or the script, which is a mixture of relationship knowledge (something greatly developed in "El Otro lado de la cama") and songs that turn into actual spoken words and vice-versa. In fact, it takes another bit of attention to notice the fact that the songs are partially sang by the actors (they sing over the originals) and sometimes some of them don't get the tempo right, that the choreographies are far from perfect (even though Tom Stern's cinematography gets the best out of every scene, acted and/or danced); but this doesn't make the film less brave or extravagant or fundamental in its message. I say too often that musicals need to fly on screen, because "Moulin Rouge!" soars and it set a bar. There's a plane in "Romance & Cigarettes" that is shown several times and it never seems to land: I think it's trying to make clear that the movie, even if we can't define it in the musical genre, flies…High.