Director: John TurturroWriter: John TurturroCinematographer: Tom SternCast: James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Steve Buscemi, Mandy Moore, Christopher Walken, Mary Louise Parker, Eddie Izzard, Elaine Stritch, Aida Turturro
Running Time: 115 min.John Turturro (star of Oh Brother Where Art Thou, Barton Fink, and many other great movies) goes behind the camera for his third outing as director in this startling re-imagination of kitchen-sink melodrama as musical. Set in contemporary
America,
Romance and Cigarettes is a picaresque comedy of infidelity and redemption. James Gandolfini (The Sopranos) leads a stellar cast, playing Nick Murder, a steel-worker fatally obsessed with Kate Winslet’s flame-haired, foul-mouthed seductress. A tragic twist of fate finally reconciles Nick with his long-suffering wife, Kitty, played by Susan Sarandon.
Turturro’s gritty, exhilarating and intense script is studded with vintage musical recordings from the 60s, lip-synched by the cast in often unsettling contexts. The result is reminiscent of the best work of the late, great British playwright Dennis Potter (Pennies from Heaven, The Singing Detective) and Lars von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark.An incredible cast of actors all throw themselves into a series of spirited appearances with verve and gusto. However special mention must be made of Kate Winslett’s
Tula – delivering a bravura performance of such exhilarating crudity that it almost redefines her career. Stephen Holden of the New York Times writes: “The cast is clearly having the time of its life… and the excitement is contagious.� The film is executive produced by oft-time Turturro collaborators Joel and Ethan Coen, however, the proudly bawdy audacity and often contentious content of Romance and Cigarettes has left it without studio backing and despite a UK release in 2006, the film has yet to be seen in the US outside a limited release earlier this year. The Virginia Film Festival is proud to be bringing this daring roller-coaster ride of a movie to an American audience.
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