Antidote Films (I),
John Turturro, Woody Allen, Vanessa Paradis, Liev Schreiber, Sharon Stone, Sofía Vergara, Tonya Pinkins, M’Barka Ben Taleb
Fioravante (John Turturro) is shutting down the family business due to bankruptcy and his friend Murray (Woody Allen) asks him if he’d be willing to try a threesome with his dentist. Reluctantly Fioravante agrees and when the ladies give him a fat bonus for his efforts, Murray comes up with the idea of renting Fioravante out to the wealthy ladies who are willing to pay big bucks for sex. With Murray as the embarrassed pimp, and Fioravante as his gigolo, things go well financially for a while until guilt and romance interferes and things start to turn really uncomfortable for the business partners.
This was a surprising film. Filled with typical Woody Allen irony and sarcasm, this is a typical Woody film of old. I wasn’t sure what to expect, and it was a lot different than what I expected. I wasn’t blown away by this film, but I was interested throughout. This is one of those films with mostly talking and lots of long scenes that are a couple people talking and talking to each other. Trying to figure out their values and their motives, you switch between different modes a number of times. Is Murray using Fioravante, or is it the other way around? Are the women worth of pity, or are they rich old biddies getting what they deserve? And then we have the love story that is really twisted around in the end. All in all, not a great film, not Woody’s best work by far, but pretty interesting so if you’re a fan, you’ll probably want to see it. If Woody bores or disgusts you, I understand and you can just pass this by. Perhaps Woody was trying to get some of this out of his system in the first place. He has a lot to ponder. It is what it is.
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
