Last weekend, I stumbled across a strange little movie that is likely not playing at a theater near you. (Unless you live in New York. Then it’s playing at the Quad Cinema.) The movie, Romance and Cigarettes, was written and directed by John Turturro and has what may be the best ensemble cast in the history of weird little independent movies. James Gandolfini plays the lead, and his odd best friend is Steve Buscemi. His wife is Susan Sarandon. His girlfriend is Kate Winslet.
His daughters are Mandy Moore and Mary-Louise Parker. And Aida Turturro is daughter number three … but she may not be his biological daughter. (It’s a little confusing.) His mother is Elaine Stritch. And his crazy neighbor is Amy Sedaris. Seriously, does it get much better than this?
The cast is what makes the movie amazing. What makes it weird is a bunch of things, most significantly the format. Turturro calls the movie a “working class opera.” The story is fairly straightforward – Gandolfini incurs the wrath of his wife and daughters when they learn of his affair, and he must figure out what he wants as he deals with major life changes. The odd part is that the characters express their inner lives via elaborate song-and-dance routines. Some of it is singing, and some is lip-synching. If you don’t know it’s coming, the first number, “Lonely Is a Man Without Love,” comes as a bit of a shock.
As a general rule, I like movies to be linear and grounded in a consistent reality. (It can be fantasy, but there needs to be a logical order.) However, I find that I’m OK with things getting surreal when Kate Winslet enters the picture. (Heavenly Creatures, anyone?) Enjoying this movie requires just letting go and accepting it for all its strangeness – and ignoring details such as Aida Turturro and Mary-Louise Parker playing James Gandolfini and Susan Sarandon’s daughters. (Mary-Louise Parker’s age in the movie is a little hard to peg. She’s got this disaffected adolescent thing going on – and she may say “I’m gay” in the midst of a chaotic scene.)
Essentially, it seems like John Turturro called up a bunch of his talented friends and said, “Hey, let’s make this weird little movie I thought up while working on Barton Fink!” And they all said, “Sure!”
Check out the trailer to get a small taste of Romance and Cigarettes:
Then make a note to look for it on DVD in a few months.
