Romance and Cigarettes is a story about just that. The first half of the story deals with Nick Murder (James Gandolfini) and the fact that he’s cheating on his wife Kitty (Susan Sarandon) with Tula (Kate Winslet). And why not? Tula is a smokin’ hot red-headed woman who’s got one of the dirtiest mouths I’ve ever seen on a woman. The things that she said were pretty wild and risque - and the only thing that ruined it was the fact that she was saying them to a guy like Nick. How the fuck did he land a snatch like that?! Sexy, baby. S-E-X-Y. Plus, I love a girl with an accent. Then, there’s the second half of the story. Cigarettes. And we all know what happens to people who smoke too many cigarettes. But, to narrow down the movie to just that would be an injustice, because there’s so much more. There’s Nick’s three daughters Rosebud (Aida Turturro), Constance (Mary-Louise Parker) and Baby (Mandy Moore) who each have their own little stories going on. Then there’s Nick’s best friend Angelo (Steve Buscemi) who I don’t really remember why he was in the movies. And there’s Kitty’s cousin Bo (Christopher Walken) who sings a little song and does a little dance just like every other character, because here’s the catch – the movie is a musical. Sort of.
How do you make a “sort of” musical? Well, you get a basic story about a man cheating on his wife, and every once in a while when your characters run out of things to say, they break out in song and dance lip-synching (and sometimes actually singing) to some catchy tunes that best tell the story and how their characters are feeling. Perhaps the best numbers to come out of this movie are any scene involving Christopher Walken (of course!), Mandy Moore who actually surprised me with her acting abilities let alone her ability to belt out a good tune, a nice touching song from James Gandolfini and best of all Bruce Springsteen’s “Red Headed Woman” about Kate Winslet’s character. “Little tight skirt, strawberry hair, tell me what you’ve got, baby, waiting under there.” You can’t beat lyrics like that, baby. (It doesn’t hurt that I’m married to a red-headed woman myself!)
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Romance and cigarettes. You could make a compelling case that those two ingredients are what the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival is all about. Romance, of course, remains the age-old standby. As for cigarettes, it seems like everyone's lighting up on screen these days (everyone, that is, except the characters in "Thank You for Smoking," a satire in which Aaron Eckhart plays an unscrupulous tobacco lobbyist). In keeping with the theme, it seems only fitting that John Turturro's new film, "Romance and Cigarettes," should kick off the latest round of award-worthy performances worth pointing out at the festival.
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