Woody Allen latest movie is slight but fun

Rating: 9/10 (30 June 2012)

Woody Allen's choral film set in Rome shows that at 76 he can still be a fine filmmaker. It consists of four intercalated though unrelated episodes, two with Italians in the center, one with Americans and the last with both Italians and Americans.
In episode 1 (the numbers I gave to each of the episodes is arbitrary), a somewhat naive newlywed couple from an Italian small town (Alessandro Tiberi and Alessandra Mastronardi, who resembles a young Marisa Tomei, and is great as the beautiful but plain Milly) comes to Rome. A series of circumstances will make them to be separated and face temptation, he to a prostitute catering to Rome's high class (Penelope Cruz), she to a famous if somewhat pathetic older actor (Antonio Albanese).
In episode 2 (not completely bad, but probably the weakest of the four), Roberto Benigni, overacting as usual, is a Roman everyman who suddenly and inexplicably becomes a celebrity hounded by the press.
In episode 3 (probably the best), Jack (Jesse Eisenberg) is an American student living in Rome with his sweet if somewhat bland girlfriend, Sally (Greta Gerwig). Soon the two are joined by a friend of Sally, the unemployed actress Monica (Ellen Page). The beautiful Monica is a great creation by the screenplay, a neurotic pseudo intellectual always quoting authors she has scarcely read. Under a veneer of worldly sophistication, she is a vain, shallow and vapid woman. As Monica tries to seduce Jack, Jack is advised by Alec Baldwin (a middle aged architect visiting Rome) that it would be foolish to leave the dependable Sally for the unstable Monica. The Baldwin character starts realistically but ends up being something of a ghost, since he materializes in every place and only Jack seemingly sees him. In his role as a ghostly adviser to a young male on questions of women and love, he resembles the Bogart character in Allen's great comedy of 40 years ago, the underrated "Play it Again, Sam".
In episode 4, Alison Pill is an American tourist who falls in love with a left wing Roman lawyer. Soon she brings her parents from the States (Woody Allen and Judy Davis, who is great as his shrink wife, always ready to psychoanalyze every one of Woody's decisions) to meet her new in laws. Allen is a retired former executive in the classical musical business, and after listening to Giancarlo (played by Fabio Armiliato, a real life Italian tenor), the father of his son in law, singing in the shower, he tries to convince him to try a career as an opera singer, to amusing results.
Some might say that the episodes are slight (and in a way they are right) but the movie contains some wise reflections on old age, fame, love, whether is better to settle or try for more, etc. In any case, I (and the audience with which I saw it) enjoyed quite a lot. The message of the film seems somewhat conservative: if you are happy with what you are, why aspire for more if that means you have to sell your soul. That might be a right message, though it strange to hear it from the famous Allen.