Village Voice
The bleakly bizarre, uneven aesthetic and direction that is fluid but not quite limber succeed and fail from montage to montage, with the principals doing a sort of karaoke tribute to the likes of Joplin and Springsteen...
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Romance and Cigarettes
We’ve all seen and admired John Turturro before (Transformers, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?). imdb.com describes him as a ‘highly talented, lightly built Italian American actor who always looks unsettled and jumpy’. Anyway, he’s directed this down-and-dirty musical set in the world of working-class New York, which tells a story of a husband's (James Gandolfini) journey into infidelity and redemption when he must choose between his seductive redheaded mistress (Kate Winslet) and his beleaguered dress-maker wife (Susan Sarandon).
2005115 minsUSA
ComedyMusicalRomance
Romance and Cigarettes / Reviews
Variety
Chockfull of ideas and with an irreverence that irresistibly recalls late '60s American cinema, thesp John Turturro's third outing in the helmer's chair, Romance & Cigarettes, alternately shines and sputters...
Full reviewThe New York Times
There is more raw vitality pumping through Romance & Cigarettes, John Turturro’s passionate ode to the sensual pulse of life in a working-class neighborhood of Queens, than in a dozen perky high school musicals. This is a movie in which a dirty mind is a good thing. Call it “The Singing Id.” Prudes, be forewarned...
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Hollywood Reporter
The sad result is a karaoke nightmare. Loud and pointlessly crude, the film takes the disintegration of a dysfunctional working-class family and gives it the song-and-dance treatment...
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BBC
A tenuous plot disperses into a smoky haze in low-budget tune-fest Romance & Cigarettes. It's billed as a "down and dirty musical about love" and actor-turned-filmmaker John Turturro certainly brings a cheekily raw and edgy quality to a stagnating format. There are also hearty performances from James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon and Kate Winslet as three corners of a suburban love triangle, but that's just one facet in a film of many parts that fail to harmonise...
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