To Rome with love -

What is this? It’s a Woody Allen movie, so I guess I’m supposed to say it reflects the futility of fame, it shows the complicated mechanisms of personal relationships, that this is a great satire of  our modern times and its superficiality… but this blog is for me so I’ll honestly say the truth: future me that you’re reading this, spare yourself a second view of this movie. Sure it’s not bad and yes, it shows some true things like how obsessed people are with fame and with sex, but maybe the satire goes too far. Taking a common man like Leopoldo (Roberto Benigni) and making him famous for no reason, with all famous women wanting to sleep with him and talking on the news about his breakfast. Satire it is, because after all people go on tv to “find a date” or something similar and they become national star for years.

Leopoldo always complained about it, how he was harassed by journalists and people asking for his opinion on everything, but when it ended he missed it terribly. His former driver told him that life is often equally full of disappointment for the rich and famous as well as for the poor and unknown, but being rich and famous is much better. Really? Is this the message? Fake, unreal lives with no true relationships but people who stick to you because you’ve got fame and money and money means power and therefore you’re a God? Yeah, this world sucks.

There’s also a guy falling for Monica, an actress friend of his girlfriend Sally, arriving on the verge of breaking up with Sally, prevented only by the announcement that Monica just got a new job in a movie shot in Japan. So, goodbye. (p.s. why was he constantly talking to Alec Baldwin??)

There’s also a couple who got separated once arrived in Rome. He pairs up with a hooker (Penelope Cruz) who decides to teach him a thing or two about sex; he gets thrust around by some relative that want to change his life, while his wife meets an actress (Ornella Muti) and is introduced to a famous actor (Antonio Albanese). I guess he’s so irresistible only because he’s famous? I know Albanese as a funny comedian, not exactly a sex magnet. 

She’s about to sleep with him when a thief comes out of the hotel bathroom (?) with a gun to rob them, but when the actor’s about to be busted by the wife, the thief saves the situation by pretending it’s his own room, in bed with his girlfriend. Now, Riccardo Scamarcio is one of the actors in the ‘attractive’ category. Someone please, tell me: are there really women like this, thinking and saying: I’ve never been with a criminal before and after all I’m already in bed so….

I mean, seriously? Bah, I guess there are, after all.

Then there is the american couple coming to meet their daughter’s about-to-become-mother-and-father-in-law. Jerry (Woody Allen) hears the man sing in the shower, top of his voice, some opera piece. Was it the Nessun Dorma or the Vincerò or what else? Gosh, I’ve already forgotten, my head is just unable to concentrate.

Anyway, Jerry won’t accept the idea of being retired and just won’t leave the man and his family in peace. He plans an audition for the man but it doesn’t go well, as his family thought: “what good is it if he can only sing in the shower?”, so absurd following absurd, Jerry manages to get him to shower on stage, with real water and soap and absence of clothes. The man sings greatly, but the idea is of course stupid, and it ends there because the man just won’t leave home to go on tour with the shower!

Jerry is nonetheless quite proud of it and of his reviews. A newspaper called him “imbecille” and he’s happy about it…. I mean, seriously, ok he’s American so yeah, not a word of Italian sure, I get it, but the Italian word Imbecille is really so different from its English translation Imbecile?

 I don’t think many Italians would be glad to read the word ‘stupid’ about themselves, because even if they don’t know English, still the word’s too similar to its Italian ‘stupido’, you see?

Jerry didn’t have even a suspect. Well, I see the satire and everything , but is this supposed to be how he sees Rome? For me, watching it once was enough, and I let Romans say what they actually think life in Rome is.