MOVIE REVIEW — TO ROME WITH LOVE

To Rome With Love

This year’s annual Woody Allen movie sorta picks up where 2011’s Midnight in Paris, his best movie in years, left off. It’s once again set in a romantic European city overstuffed with history and camera-ready, on-location sets. It’s populated by an ensemble of Woody-rhythmic actors, including Ellen Page, Jesse Eisenberg, and Alec Baldwin. And in its own way it’s kind of a fantasy. But To Rome With Love tells four different stories, as Allen (who also stars) pans around the city in search of a theme. The stories don’t always work: The one with Baldwin as an architect giving love advice to Eisenberg is mildly bittersweet; the one with Penélope Cruz as a hooker caught in a case of mistaken identity is sorta amusing. But the segment with Allen’s retired opera director reignited by a guy who sings opera fabulously in the shower and the story starring Roberto Benigni as an ordinary Italian trapped in a faux-celebrity hell drag on. Part of To Rome With Love‘s problem is focus: Juggling four tales leaves Allen scattered. The other problem is that it’s not very funny. Allen’s movies always offer a few good scenes. This one has fewer options than usual.