To Rome with Love
Metascore
54 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 38 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 38
  2. Mixed: 17 out of 38
  3. Negative: 4 out of 38
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  1. ReelViews
    Reviewed by: James Berardinelli
    Jul 7, 2012
    38
    It's either a failed experiment or a movie that was rushed through production so Allen could fulfill his one project-per-year commitment.
  2. Washington Post
    Reviewed by: Michael O'Sullivan
    Jun 28, 2012
    38
    A giant disappointment. It's as bustling as its titular city's piazzas, but it goes nowhere.
  3. Slant Magazine
    Reviewed by: Bill Weber
    Jun 18, 2012
    25
    "With age comes exhaustion," according to a rueful line late in the film, and it serves as a fitting diagnosis for Woody Allen's latest fallen souffle set in a European cultural capital.
  4. Wall Street Journal
    Reviewed by: Joe Morgenstern
    Jun 21, 2012
    20
    For better or worse, Woody Allen turns out a movie every year. Last year's "Midnight in Paris" was better than better; that is to say, sublime. To Rome With Love is worse than worse, as inert as its predecessor was inspired.

User Reviews

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User Score
6.1 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 63 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 21
  2. Mixed: 4 out of 21
  3. Negative: 2 out of 21
  1. Edeltraud
    5
    A pleasant postcard from Roma, with interesting conceits. But overall, the story meandered all over the place without any satisfactory resolve and at times grew tedious. Penelope, Ellen and Alec played their usual selves. The opera singer (an actual opera singer, a famous tenor) was awesome. Woody inserted a few on-liners for himself, that made me laugh, but could be considered clumsy. A harmless and entertaining enough way to spend a winter's night and no one's brains got blown out which is always a plus.… Full Review »
  2. JudgeHolden
    4
    After a decent "Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona" and a good "Midnight in Paris", Woody Allen offers us a galore of stereotypes about Italy and the Italians boosted to unimaginable, absurd levels. Where are all intelligent and witty jokes that used to enjoy in his movies? Where is the well balanced humour? All I receive is a flawed picture of the Italian society, which seems to be full of idiots and people obsessed with fame, not to mention a total lack of Rome itself. The atmosphere of this wonderful city was reduced to a few postcard-ish scenes that completely lack to portrait its soul. And what is Penelope Cruz doing there? She was included in the cast as a prostitute who doesn't even speak good Italian... When Carlo Verdone, a famous Italian actor from Rome, saw this movie in March, he supposedly said: "Allen knows nothing about Rome and the Romans". Unfortunately, he was right.… Full Review »
  3. ClariseSamuels
    4
    This film is a little frustrating because followers of Woody Allen will wonder how to categorize it. Is it a romantic romp or a surreal critique of society? If a critique of society, this is Allen's society, and as always he is preoccupied with romance, the alienation of the artist, the elusive pursuit of scholarly excellence, and his own mortality. We have four romantic vignettes, the most entertaining of which is a young Italian couple, newlywed, who become separated for a day and absurdly end up cheating on each other on their honeymoon. The young wife is seduced by a movie star she has always admired, having watched him filming on the streets of Rome, and the young husband is seduced by a beautiful hooker, played by Penelope Cruz. Even this vignette is exaggerated and wearisome, but it is the best of the four and makes a stab at examining the essential nature of fidelity. Roberto Benigni, in another vignette plays Leopoldo Pisanello, a married, hard-working father of two who one day walks out his door and is suddenly famous for no reason. Journalists swarm him and want to know what he ate for breakfast. He is tortured and plagued by the media attention, and he just wants peace and quiet. But then, Leopoldo, who like Allen is a skinny, scrawny, average-looking guy, begins to enjoy the benefits of celebrity. When in bed with other women, he worries about being a married man. "Don't worry, Mr. Pisanello, the rules don't apply to you--you are special," he is told by a fan. That line would be of little consequence in another film, but in a Woody Allen film, it takes on new dimensions. When the media attention disappears as mysteriously as it arose, Leopoldo sighs that if he has to choose between being a celebrity and a poor unknown, it's better to be a celebrity. Unfortunately, Leopoldo never comprehends that the lack of substance behind his overblown celebrity constitutes the worst form of philosophical inauthenticity. In a third vignette, Alec Baldwin plays a voice of conscience telling the young Jesse Eisenberg, who is acting like the young Woody Allen, not to fall for Monica (Ellen Page), because she is a superficial, petty intellectual and worse--she's an actress, which means she is flighty, promiscuous, and unreliable, if not downright ditsy. Baldwin is always there making comments in the background, yet he is strangely invisible, one of the plot devices indicating the film is supposed to be magical realism, with surreal elements, although it flits back and forth indecisively about its genre, as it does about its plot. Allen appears playing an American dad in Rome, and Judy Davis, an old-time member of Allen's entourage, is his wife. The fourth vignette is Alison Pill's role as a tourist who meets a gorgeous Italian stallion at the Trevi Fountain. There is arguably a fifth vignette about an opera singer who can only perform in the shower, therefore the shower stall is put on the stage so that the populace can hear this angelic voice, no matter what it takes. How do all of these vignettes tie together? They don't. But they all take place in Rome, the Eternal City, whose perpetuity is somehow supposed to make all of this cohere, and needless to say, it doesn't. (The musical score, which is intended to contribute to the Roman ambience, is annoying.) Nevertheless, the film is vintage Woody Allen, and if you're a fan who wonders what Allen had for breakfast, you'll wonder what he had for breakfast the day he sat down to write this screenplay.… Full Review »
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