To Rome With Love - 1 1/2 smiles

“To Rome With Love,” written and directed by Woody Allen, is a collection of skits loosely strung together in a cross-generational contemplation of issues that anyone familiar with Allen’s films will recognize. It has a been-there-seen-that feel that might initially benefit from the good will generated by last year’s Midnight in Paris, but word-of-mouth will ultimately affect the box office. Allen script isn’t coherent, his characters are less than interesting and the acting, even with a solid cast, is amateurish. Although the four stories intercut, they never connect and the passage of time is inconsistent. One couple’s story seems confined to a single day, while others appear to spin out across many weeks.

In one story, a young couple, accidentally separated, enjoys separate affairs; in another, an American opera director discovers a singer who can only perform in the shower. In the third, a young man finds himself falling for his girlfriend’s best friend; in the fourth, a minor bureaucrat wakes one day to find himself inexplicably famous. All have elements of improbability. In the third story, for example, the young man is advised by an older stranger who follows him around. Sometimes other characters see this fellow; other times, they don’t. Is he a projection of the young man’s worries? Is the young man a projection of the older man’s memories? Do we really care? And the casting seems odd. Jesse Eisenberg is boring as the young man studying abroad, but when his girlfriend reluctantly introduces him to her dangerously sexy best friend, and it turns out to be Ellen Page, you say, ‘Whoa! She’s the desirable temptress?’ Alec Baldwin comes off best as the jaded American who spends most of the film following Eisenberg’s character around, commenting on the melodrama of young love. If you’re really interested in seeing a Woody Allen movie, rent Midnight in Paris. Skip “To Rome With Love.” 6/24/12