Romance and Cigarettes. Directed by John Turturro. Writen by John Turturro. Release Date: 2006 (Spain). Country of Production: United States of America. Key Cast: James Gandolfini (Nick Murder), Susan Sarandon (Kitty), Kate Winslet (Tula), Steve Buscemi (Angelo), Mandy Moore (Baby), Mary-Louise Parker (Constance), Aida Turturro (Rosebud), and Christopher Walken (Cousin Bo).
I’ll admit that I nearly turned off Romance and Cigarettes after the first 10 minutes. The dialog felt unnatural and amateur. I had already written a one-sentence review—“This movie should have had twice the budget and four more rewrites, then it would have been something.”
Luckily, I had nothing else to do that day. So I stuck with it. I rewrote my one sentence a few times. Then it became two. Then I knew I had to throw myself into it because Christopher Walken danced into the film…and let me tell you, he danced the way I always want him to dance in movies. He got his own number! With backup dancers! I watched the scene three times…
This film is a musical of sorts. There is dancing and singing every few minutes. The songs are different renditions of songs I believe John Turturro just plain likes a lot…from “Piece of My Heart” to “Delilah.” They work into the story of infidelity well, and the dancing is over-the-top and wonderful. When Kate Winslet dances to “Scapricciatiello” and she shimmies, it was pure magic.
A selling point of this movie was the “raw sexuality.” I really liked it. Tula (Winslet) is fantastic as Nick Murder's girlfriend, and nothing like the sexual objects of the recent Hollywood films. This movie made me think about that—the way Hollywood packages sexuality for us. There is this overwhelming plastic factor—always a body type and a personality to match the “sexual profile.” Romance and Cigarettes never presents us with a sexual object, instead it presents us with a character. Kate Winslet was Tula, and Tula shakes her boobies and sleeps with a lot of men and loves Nick Murder.
So where does the film fall flat? Why did I see the movie and make a call about the quality within the first few minutes?
The first reason for this, I believe, was the quality of the film. The budget wasn’t what I wanted from this movie because it needed brighter colors. The film was dull and washed out. The shots are set up beautifully; but it needed to more saturation to be stunning. Then, I believe, it would be difficult to dismiss. As it is, the quality of the film looks low, and the complexity of the writing makes it take awhile to get invested in the film. I can see how it is easy to become disinterested right off the bat.
The second reason this film was hard to digest was the dialog. John Turturro played with poetry, making some scenes feel like some cheap pieces of performance art. There is a scene where Nick Murder’s (Gandalfini) mother walks into his room and yells at him in the hospital bed, “I should have chopped your balls off!” The psycho-babble is definitely worked in. I was momentarily reminded of all those Philip Roth novels I had to read for a class.
Then, for some reason, after the first half hour, I really started to like the dialog. Whereas it had felt like a hindrance to the movie before, at some point I realized that there was no reason to cling so hard to my preconceived notions of dialog that needs to sound natural. Didn't Tarantino cure me of this years ago? The writing was interesting. No, it didn’t seem natural or, at some points, sensical, but after awhile it sounded Shakespearian.
I didn’t love Romance and Cigarettes. Or maybe I did. Either way, I wish I had written and directed it.
For a clip from the movie, check out
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