ROMANCE & CIGARETTES (John Turturro, 2005)

Caught against the tides of a conglomerate melee between Sony and MGM for close to two years, John Turturro’s third directorial effort (after 1992’s MAC and 1998’s ILLUMINATA) is a shrill, brassy, bombastic blue-collar musical with an impressive cast lip-syncing and belting it out alongside a hodgepodge of classic AM favorites. James Gandolfini is a bellicose, mustachioed construction worker frustrated and frazzled with the way his marriage to Susan Sarandon is turning out, and so, after an impassioned contemplation over the consequences, he turns to a potty-mouthed émigré Brit hooker (Kate Winslet, a literal and figurative “siren”) for bedroom kicks. Their three children (Mandy Moore, Aida Turturro, and Mary-Louise Parker, the last two being a numerical impossibility when considering both ages of screen parents and daughters) make up a gleeful, gyrating Greek chorus for their mother, making his decision even more enticing. Christopher Walken turns up to do his patented (and if his television interviews are any indication, downright obsessive) Elvis routine-impersonation, swaying his hips to Presley’s “Trouble” upon entrance, but his mimicked song and dance number to Tom Jones’ “Delilah” is no match for a similar scene-stealer in the equally as pomo musical PENNIES FROM HEAVEN (Herbert Ross, 1981). At times too heavy-handed and whimsical for its own good, Turturro keys scenes with either too much gentility or too much pomposity, making for an odd clash of tones that never sincerely pays off one way or the other. Tom Stern’s cinematography is full of grizzled overcast grays contrasting with elegant reds, in other words, the everyday meshing with the spectacular -- a bit of a cliché, if you ask me. Going for a heady combination of the deconstructive BBC musicals of Dennis Potter with a brave acting exercise exploring the unhappy, humdrum side of marriage, Turturro doesn’t succeed in either element, separately or blended into a more cohesive whole.