Why Woody Allen should not star in his own movies

Rating: 2/10 (9 May 2013)

Woody Allen has made some very important and poignant films and he does have quite a following. When Allen casts himself in movies that he writes and directs they become ego trips and almost unbearably dull as Allen's character is always Woody Allen, despite the costume he is supposed to be wearing to alter his character.
TO ROME WITH LOVE has one main character - the glorious city of Rome. The rest of the cast make up little frazzled stories that each seem dispensable: a worker (Robertp Benigni) who wakes up to find himself a celebrity - for a while; an architect (Alec Baldwin) who takes a trip back to the street he lived on as a student now inhabited by a confused contemporary student (Jesse Eisenberg); a young couple on their honeymoon (Alessandro Tiberi and Alessandra Mastronardi) whose life is disrupted by a hooker (Penelope Cruz) and a movie star (Antonio Albanese); and a frustrated opera director (Woody Allen) and his wife (Judy Davis) who on a trip to Rome to meet their daughter and her fiancé (Allison Pill and Flavio Parenti) has a talent for discovering talented singers and 'discovers' his future in-law (Fabio Armiliato) who sings opera arias well - but only in the shower. It all sounds silly and it is.
Were it not for the beauty of Rome the film could be easily dismissed as one of Woody Allen's 'off films'. Even a cast of very fine actors can't save this from drowning in the overdone and fallen cake.
Grady Harp