Romance and Cigarettes
Years of working with the Coen brothers appear to have influenced John Turturro, as is evident in the 2005 musical Romance and Cigarettes.
Despite Turturro’s considerable thought and planning (apparently he had an idea of the songs and actors he wanted to feature before he had even constructed the story), the film conveys an air of effortlessness: probably due to its fine cast, who appear to relax and surrender uninhibitedly to their characters and to their chaotic setting. Curiously, the actors don’t really sing; they sing along to the soundtrack.
Nick Murder (James Gandolfini) is a philandering New York construction worker when we first meet him, and when his wife first confronts him about his infidelity. He spits back and heads out to the porch, where he starts to sing, continuing along the driveway and out into the street, until he is dancing with an ensemble of garbage collectors, all lamenting the pain that love and loneliness can bring.
Murder will always be working class: no matter where he is in the film, we see vestiges of construction and industry. But will he always be – as his wife puts it – a “whoremaster”?
With his rough accent and hulking presence, Gandolfini will find it hard to escape his career-defining role: Tony Soprano. Fortunately, such a rendition is suitable for this role.
Susan Sarandon comes full circle in her role as Murder’s wife Kitty (having appeared in The Rocky Horror Picture Show back in the seventies). Other cast members seem to settle into the genre with astonishing ease: Kate Winslett as Murder’s lascivious northern English misstress is fabulous.
Aida Turturro (the writer/director’s cousin) is reunited with Gandolfini, alongside whom she worked in The Sopranos, and is very good in her small role as his emotionally incompetent daughter.
Mary Louise Parker, playing another of the daughters, is somewhat one-dimensional, and it’s hard not to think that aside from the costume, make up and wigs, she is playing the gawping, slack-jawed character she has played in several roles over recent years. It’s as if she is constantly trying to be natural!
Bobby Cannivale (The Station Agent), Amy Sedaris (from the outrageous Strangers With Candy), and even Eddie Izzard are among other notable cast members, and are all very good. Sedaris’s appearance is brief but amusing.
But the steak knives are delivered in the form of Christopher Walken, who revels in the crazy role of Cousin Bo, Steve Buscemi (no stranger to Coen brothers films) as Murder’s straight-talking co-worker, and Eileen Stritch as Murder’s mother, whose only scene in the film is wickedly funny.
Romance and Cigarettes is a pacy film, with songs and dances galore, until, when treated to a rather poetic setting of Nick Cave’s The Water Song (an unusual choice considering the other songs, but it seems to work), the film actually becomes a little bit moving … if you let it.
But overall, it’s just shambolic fun. Imagine the character John Turturro played in the Coens’ The Big Lebowski consuming non-medicinal pharmaceuticals and then directing a grittier, vulgar, middle-aged version of a Jacques Demy film, and you have some idea of what to expect.
There are a few great shots in this film, but mostly it’s deranged fun. Hardly high-brow fare, but definitely of interest to Coen Brothers devotees and fans of any of the cast members listed above.