Romance & Cigarettes Critic Reviews
Metascore®:
Based upon 11 Critic ReviewsHighest Rated
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Romance & Cigarettes is the real thing, a film that breaks out of Hollywood jail with audacious originality, startling sexuality, heartfelt emotions, and an anarchic liberty. The actors toss their heads and run their mouths like prisoners let loose to race free.Read the full review
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.Read the full review
Attempts something startlingly original by melding light opera with soap opera.Read the full review
A hilarious, touching, and (except for a dip into melodrama near the end) skillful blend of subtle emotional depths and a dazzlingly playful surface.Read the full review
It's almost unfair to make the comparison because there are so many fundamental differences, but the closest recent movie to Romance and Cigarettes is "Moulin Rouge." The key likeness is easy to spot: the characters spontaneously break into familiar pop songs.Read the full review
Enthusiastically smutty and lyrical, the movie attempts to capture the way we unconsciously set the emotional moments of our lives to pop music, turning fits of passion, anger and righteous indignation into elaborate musical numbers in our heads.Read the full review
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.Read the full review
With Walken around, hair up high, of course there are fleeting moments of fascinating weirdness, but even then, you're still moderately embarrassed for the cast.Read the full review
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.Read the full review
the movie comes on as a novelty item, meaning it's so full of disparate parts and so unable to approach coherence, it just sits there and burns out.Read the full review
